The custody of the fifth young man arrested on Friday in Meurthe-et-Moselle, as part of an investigation aimed at verifying the existence of a possible attack plan, was lifted on Sunday evening without prosecution at this stage, we learned on Monday from a judicial source. Four other young men, arrested during the same operation, were released on Saturday evening.
The investigation, opened by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) for criminal terrorist association, aimed to “verify whether there was a terrorist project, what its state of completion was and the target(s) if applicable”, a source close to the investigation indicated on Saturday.
The investigations were to verify the degree of seriousness of a possible project, indicated another source close to the investigation, refusing to confirm or deny whether the suspects had scouted a Christmas market.
Possible sightings in Strasbourg
A source close to the case indicated on Saturday that among these five young men, aged 20 to 23, two of the suspects, two students, one arrested in Toul and the other in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, were monitored. and followed during a trip to the Strasbourg Christmas market at the beginning of December.
The student arrested in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy is said to have commented aggressively on social networks on a publication relating to the Christmas markets. This same source confirmed that the homes of the two students had been searched on December 9. Investigators found a video filmed at the Strasbourg Christmas market, where they could hear: “And there, we shoot”.
On December 11, 2018, an attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market left five people dead and around ten injured.