A man suspected of stabbing a young Malian to death in a mosque in southern France and filming his victim writhing in agony has surrendered to police in Italy, a prosecutor told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday, April 28. The suspect, identified as Olivier A., a French national born in Lyon in 2004, "surrendered himself to a police station in Pistoia" near Florence, on Sunday, Abdelkrim Grini, the prosecutor of the southern city of Alès, who is in charge of the case, told AFP.
More than 70 French police officers had been mobilized since Friday to "locate and arrest" the perpetrator, considered "potentially extremely dangerous", the prosecutor said. A European arrest warrant will be issued for his transfer across the border to France, he added. "This is very satisfying for me as a prosecutor. Faced with the effectiveness of the measures put in place, the suspect had no option but to hand himself in – and that is the best thing he could have done," Grini said.
"After boasting about his act, after practically claiming responsibility for it, he made comments that would suggest he intended to commit similar acts again," Grini had said on Sunday.
The suspect is from a Bosnian family, unemployed, and with ties to the southern Gard region. He lived in the small town of La Grande Combe which lies north of Alès.
"He was someone who had remained under the radar of the justice system and the police, and who had never been in the news until these tragic events," Grini had said on Sunday.
In La Grand-Combe, more than 1,000 people gathered on Sunday for a silent march in memory of the victim, Aboubakar Cissé, who was 22. They marched from the Khadidja Mosque, where the stabbing occurred, to the town hall.
Several hundred people also gathered in Paris later Sunday, including three-time presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who accused Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau of cultivating an "Islamophobic climate."
"Racism and hatred based on religion will never have a place in France," President Emmanuel Macron said on X on Sunday, expressing "the nation's support" to the victim's family and "to our Muslim compatriots."