(AFP) — Two suspects involved in an attack on a synagogue in southern France at the weekend were charged late Wednesday and remain in custody, Paris anti-terror prosecutors said.
The charges come after two cars were set alight in a car park under a synagogue near the seaside resort of La Grande Motte, causing an explosion just 30 minutes before its Saturday service and injuring a police officer.
The main suspect, a 33-year-old Algerian identified as “EHK”, was charged with attempted terrorist murder committed on the grounds of race or religion and for criminal terrorism association, according to France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT).
A legal resident in France, EHK was not known to police.
In a statement, PNAT said that suspect EHK was “radicalised in the practice of his religion over several months” and had long harboured “a hate for Jews, particularly focused on the situation in Palestine”.
Police prefect of the Herault department Francois-Xavier Lauch (C) delivers a speech during a ceremony to support the Beth Yaacov synagogue at the synagogue in the seaside resort of La Grande Motte, near the city of Montpellier, southern France, on August 26, 2024, two days after two cars were set alight near the synagogue. (PASCAL GUYOT/AFP via Getty Images)
“He had admitted to the facts in the first hearing” and “explained that he acted in support of the Palestinian cause, denying any homicidal intent but conceding to have had intended to cause fear”, the public prosecutor said.
Another man allegedly in his entourage was charged with association with criminal terrorism by the PNAT.
The prosecutor argued he was someone with whom EHK had “shared his project”.
A third man was charged for having transported the alleged arsonist and placed under judicial supervision.
The investigation will continue as part of a judicial inquiry, PNAT said.
On Saturday morning, CCTV cameras near the Beth Yaacov synagogue captured a suspect with his face uncovered and draped in a Palestinian flag attempting to set fires.
The suspect did not attempt to enter the place of worship but rather set fires at various points around the synagogue while five people, including the rabbi, were inside.
Sources close to the investigation said the suspect left the scene on foot, before being arrested in the town of Nimes some 50 kilometres (31 miles) away.
