Serbian police have arrested 11 people accused of inciting hatred in France and Germany, including placing pigs' heads near mosques and defacing Jewish sites. The arrests came days after French prosecutors said foreign interference was probably behind a spate of provocative acts targeting Jewish and Muslim sites, amid tensions over the war in Gaza.
Serbia's interior ministry said on Monday that the arrested were Serbian nationals, believed to have been trained by another suspect who was acting under the instructions of a foreign intelligence service and remains at large. The ministry alleged the group was involved in acts between April and September, citing the defacing of a French Holocaust memorial and three synagogues with green paint, the placing of pigs' heads outside Paris-area mosques, and concrete skeletons with messages left at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.
Their objective, the ministry said, was to spread ideas advocating and inciting hatred, discrimination and violence based on differences. The arrests followed outrge in France after pigs' heads were left outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris. Prosecutors in the city said the acts had been carried out by foreign nationals with the clear intention of causing unrest, and the two people involved were believed to have crossed into Belgium hours later.
Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the tactics echoed other incidents that had shaken France in the past two years, including stars of David painted on buildings and red hands spray-painted on the Holocaust memorial. She said the acts were carried out by eastern Europeans who often photographed their deeds and sent images beyond France's borders, suggesting foreign interference.
Earlier detentions connected to the incidents include three Serbian nationals in May over the green paint, four Bulgarians expected to stand trial next month over red-hand symbols, and a Moldovan couple arrested after the stars of David appeared. An alleged handler, a pro-Russian Moldovan businessman, was later identified, with suspicions that Russia's security services were behind that campaign.
