Serbian police have arrested 11 people over hate-motivated acts in France and Germany, including defacing Jewish sites and placing pigs’ heads near mosques, authorities said Monday.
The suspects, all Serbian, were allegedly trained by another Serbian, who is “currently on the run,” on “the instructions of a foreign intelligence service,” Serbia’s interior ministry said in a statement, without specifying the intelligence service’s nationality. “Their objective was also to spread ideas advocating and inciting hatred, discrimination and violence based on differences.”
France has launched a series of investigations in recent years into acts of vandalism linked to foreign interference, with many observers pointing the finger at Moscow. Those attacks have often targeted the country’s significant Jewish and Muslim communities, at a time of heightened tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. European intelligence services have also thwarted Iran-backed terror plots against Jewish sites, including, reportedly, in France and Germany in 2024.
The heads of nine pigs, considered impure in Islam, were found in early September outside mosques in Paris and the surrounding region, sparking outrage and alarm over rising anti-Muslim hatred.
According to the Serbian interior ministry, between April and September, the group allegedly committed a number of attacks in Paris and its surroundings, including throwing green paint on the Holocaust Museum, several synagogues and a Jewish restaurant.
They also posted stickers with “genocidal” content and left pig heads near Muslim religious sites, some of which were tagged with French President Emmanuel Macron’s name.
In Germany, “concrete skeletons” inscribed with messages were also left at the Brandenburg Gate.
France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, as well as a substantial Muslim community. According to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, several EU nations have reported a spike in both anti-Muslim hatred and antisemitism since the Gaza war was sparked by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023.
Monday’s statement said the group of 11 will be brought before the prosecutor on a range of offenses, including racial discrimination and espionage.
They were arrested in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, and in Velika Plana, a town about 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the south, in coordination with the security services.
French investigators quickly identified a vehicle with Serbian license plates and a Croatian phone number linked to the crimes near the mosques.
Detectives are also probing posters that were plastered on the Arc de Triomphe in the same month, depicting a Russian soldier and the words “Say thank you to the victorious Soviet soldier.”
The vandalism of the Holocaust Memorial, synagogues and a restaurant in late April led to the arrest and charging of three Serbs in France.
A French judicial source told AFP that they were suspected of committing the crimes “in order to serve the interests of a foreign power.”
Belgrade has maintained close ties with Moscow in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Several direct flights connect the two countries every day, and a large Russian diaspora has settled in Belgrade.
Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić and other government officials have also visited Moscow since the invasion began.