Three young men were indicted by an anti-terrorism judge at the end of May on suspicion of involvement in a plan to kidnap and murder two Roma people, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned on Wednesday July 31 from sources close to the case. Their plan was discovered by investigators when they were tracing the thread of another violent plan.
Aged 18, they are suspected of having participated in the planned kidnapping and murder of a father and son belonging to the Gypsy community ‘using the codes of jihadist propaganda’, according to a police summary obtained by AFP. They are also accused of having planned to plant an Islamic State flag on a castle and burn down a gendarmerie. They were charged with criminal terrorist association and placed under judicial supervision at the end of May.
The case, which has now been split into two parts, began with the identity check of an 18-year-old outside a CBD supermarket, who was subsequently arrested in July 2023. The investigators discovered the existence of a group on SnapChat where he and other men were discussing the idea of attacking an employee of this shop, whom they nicknamed ‘the Christian’ because he broadcast videos on the theme of religion. (…) Le Monde
(…) Since his arrest, charges have been brought against five other men, the same sources reported. One man, who is already in custody, was being monitored by police with a listening device, one of the sources said. Investigators found out that he was apparently pursuing another violent plan targeting Roma. He exchanged information with the recently arrested suspects, who were friends from his village in the Gard department, according to another source familiar with the case. In addition to his charge in connection with the ‘ Christian ’, he was also charged in winter in connection with this second part, according to a source familiar with the case. His lawyer, attorney Orly Rezlan, declined to comment.
At the end of May, one of the young people in police custody under court supervision said that he had been ‘terrorised’ by the man who allegedly wanted to kill ‘gypsies’ by ‘quoting the Quran’ and distributing videos of it. His lawyer, Ilyacine Maallaoui, declined to comment. Emanuel de Dinechin, another defence lawyer, said: ‘The investigating judge has a lot of work ahead of him to distinguish the profiles in this case. Le Figaro