The leader of a gang who kidnapped a Jewish mobile phone salesman and tortured him to death in one of France’s most gruesome murder cases was tonight sentenced to life in prison.

Youssouf Fofana, 28, went on trial accused of leading 27 others in an elaborate plan to trap the young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, by enticing him on a date with a woman before holding him hostage in a windowless cellar and torturing him because he believed Jews were “loaded” and would pay a ransom. The case sparked a wave of national soul-searching about anti-semitism in France.

Halimi, 23, was found naked with his head shaved, in handcuffs and covered with burn marks and stab wounds near rail tracks outside Paris in February 2006. In a state of shock and unable to speak, he died en route to hospital. He had been held, tortured and beaten for three weeks, his head wrapped in tape, eyes Sellotaped shut and fed through a straw, while a gang known as “the Barbarians” demanded a ransom from his family.

Police initially did not treat the case as a hate crime. But within days of Halimi’s death his family said he was targeted because he was Jewish. France, still coming to terms with its anti-semitic collaboration of the second world war, was shocked by the gruesome crime. Tens of thousands of people marched against anti-semitism.

Fofana, a charismatic gang leader on a housing estate outside western Paris, had already tried and failed to kidnap people for cash when he spotted Halimi as a target. As the verdict was read out last night, he mimicked applause.

The young woman who agreed to ensnare Halimi in a honey-trap by suggesting the meet and go for a coke, was sentenced to nine years in prison. Now aged 21, she was 17 at the time of the kidnapping and was said to have been persuaded to take part by someone she knew from her children’s home.

Two other men, aged 30 and 23, accused of playing the biggest role in the kidnapping and torture were sentenced to 15 and 18 years.