The custody of four young men arrested on Friday, December 22 in Meurthe-et-Moselle in an anti-terrorist operation was lifted on Saturday evening, while a fifth man saw his custody extended, we learned on Sunday, December 24. Agence France-Presse (AFP) from a judicial source.
The investigation, opened for criminal terrorist association, was entrusted to the anti-terrorism sub-directorate (SDAT) of the judicial police and the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI). It aims to “check if there was a terrorist project, what its progress was and the target(s) if applicable”, a source close to the investigation told AFP on Saturday. The investigations must 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.
The arrests took place Friday morning in Nancy, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy and Toul. They took place “following potentially worrying elements”a source close to the matter said on Friday evening.
Darmanin calls for “maintaining extreme vigilance”
Another source close to the case assured AFP on Saturday that among these five young men, aged 20 to 23, two of the suspects, two students, arrested one 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 would have commented on social networks on a publication relating to the Christmas markets with aggression against these events.
This same source confirmed that the homes of the two students were searched on December 9. Investigators found a video filmed at the Strasbourg Christmas market, where they could hear: “And there we shoot”. An attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market left five people dead and around ten injured in 2018.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, called on Friday the prefects to “maintain extreme vigilance” on the occasion of the Christmas and Epiphany holidays, due to the “very high level of the terrorist threat which continues to weigh”.