Four days after an attempted arson attack on the synagogue in La Grande-Motte (Hérault), the main suspect and a relative were indicted on Wednesday evening by a Parisian anti-terrorist judge and then imprisoned for this act which could have had “dramatic” consequences, according to the authorities.
Late in the evening on Wednesday 28 August, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) announced that “EHK”, a 33-year-old Algerian in a regular situation and unknown to specialist services, had been indicted by an anti-terrorist judge, in particular for attempted terrorist assassinations committed on the grounds of race or religion and for terrorist criminal association, in accordance with his requisitions.
He was then placed in provisional detention by decision of a judge of liberties and detention (JLD).
In a press release issued on Wednesday afternoon, the Pnat detailed its demands and explained that “EHK” had “radicalized himself in the practice of his religion for several months and (had) also harbored, for a long time, a hatred of Jews, more specifically focused on the situation in Palestine.”
“To support the Palestinian cause”
“He admitted the facts at his first hearing” and “explained that he had acted to support the Palestinian cause, denying any intention to kill but conceding that he had intended to cause fear,” the public prosecutor said.
A man from his entourage was indicted for criminal terrorist association by the anti-terrorist magistrate and then imprisoned by the JLD, according to the Pnat. The prosecution had presented him as a man “with whom EHK appears to have shared his project”.
Finally, a third man who transported the alleged arsonist from Grau-du-Roi to Nîmes was charged with receiving stolen property from a terrorist criminal and placed under judicial supervision.
“The investigations will now continue as part of the judicial inquiry,” added the Pnat.
Shortly before 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, EHK was caught on CCTV cameras, his face uncovered and a Palestinian flag draped around his waist, trying to set fire to the area around the Beth Yaakov synagogue in the seaside town, ahead of the usually well-attended Shabbat morning service.
The suspect did not enter the religious building but tried to start a fire “in different parts of the synagogue’s grounds”, while five people, including the rabbi, were inside.
He then fled and was arrested on Saturday evening in Nîmes.
On Sunday, the resigning Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin considered that a “tragedy was narrowly avoided” and denounced an “anti-Semitic act”.
“Direct threat”
The suspect, according to the Pnat, was carrying an axe and a handgun.
“The conditions of implementation (mode of operation, target)” of this act are, according to the Pnat, “likely to create a climate of fear and insecurity among the population and to give rise in the Jewish community and beyond to a feeling of dread and direct threat”.
It “constitutes the first violent act of an anti-Semitic nature that the Pnat has taken up” since the bloody attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7, underlines this specialized prosecutor’s office.
The attack sparked outrage and prompted a gathering of a thousand people, including many elected officials and representatives of several religions, on Tuesday evening in Montpellier to denounce anti-Semitism and support the Jewish community.
“It is a miracle that we have not had to mourn any victims,” stressed the national president of the Consistoire israélite de France, Elie Korchia, in Montpellier.
“We need this gathering to be not only a gesture of fraternity, but a moment of republican reaffirmation,” explained the president of CRIF, Yonathan Arfi.
Anti-Semitic acts have almost tripled in France since the beginning of the year, with “887 incidents” recorded in the first half of the year, Mr. Darmanin indicated on August 9. There were 304 during the same period in 2023.
They had already increased sharply in 2023, particularly after October 7, according to the Ministry of the Interior, which recorded 1,676 over the year, “four times more than in 2022”.
