Serbian authorities said they are questioning 11 people suspected of involvement in a series of hate acts against Muslim and Jewish sites in France. They include throwing pig heads into mosques and spraying synagogues with green paint.
The suspects, all of whom are Serbian nationals, were arrested this week and committed a series of hate acts between April and September this year, investigators believe. The likely ringleader, who has the initials M.G., remains at large.
The latest incident took place in Paris in early September, when pig’s heads were left in front of nine Paris mosques. Several of them bore the name of French President Emmanuel Macron.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said law enforcers were making efforts to “find those responsible for these horrific acts.” Paris police said an investigation eventually revealed that the pig heads were planted by foreign nationals travelling in a car with Serbian number plates.
A farmer from Normandy told investigators that two people in a vehicle with number plates “that looked Serbian” bought 12 pig heads from him, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
Surveillance cameras recorded the same men arriving in Paris and showed the two men placing the pig heads in front of several mosques, police added.
In April, several locations in Paris, including the Holocaust Museum, three synagogues and a Jewish restaurant, were vandalised with green paint.
A group of 11 people, identified only by initials, were questioned at the High Prosecutor’s Office in the Serbian town of Smederevo, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The men were arrested on suspicion of complicity in “criminal offences of racial and other discrimination and espionage”.
Prosecutors proposed that nine of them be taken into custody for up to 30 days, French news agency AFP reported.
French officials have previously said they are investigating Russia’s role in destabilisation operations to stoke social tensions and deepen divisions in the country. Investigators suspect that” these foreign intervention operations were aimed at sowing discord in French society,” Le Monde newspaper reported on 27 September. However, according to Le Monde, French investigators still have no concrete evidence of Russian involvement.
French prosecutor Laure Beccuo said in September that the tactics used in the mosque attacks were reminiscent of other incidents that have rocked France over the past two years, including the spray-painting of some 60 Stars of David on buildings in Paris and surrounding areas.
Serbia, which is seeking EU membership, has close ties with Russia and is the only European country that has not imposed sanctions against Moscow.
Similar actions were also reported from Germany.