A 30-year-old man, a nurseryman by profession and with a criminal record, was indicted and imprisoned. He is suspected of having wanted to burn down the Morlaix mosque in Saint-Martin-des-Champs (Finistère) on January 13, the Brest prosecutor’s office announced on Friday.
“The motivations for this act have not been explained at this stage of the procedure, the accused having remained silent”, indicated the Brest prosecutor’s office in a press release, specifying that he faced a sentence of fifteen years in prison. prison and 150,000 euros fine.
A video of the scene broadcast
Around 7:30 a.m. last Saturday, a man wearing a hood “sprayed a combustible product on the front door of the religious building, then tried to set a fire,” according to the prosecution. “A flashback then occurred, without injuring the perpetrator,” according to the same source. The video of the scene was widely distributed by several regional and national media.
The suspect was finally arrested on Friday in Landerneau (Finistère) at the home of his partner. He is accused of having “voluntarily degraded or damaged the property of others by a means dangerous for people with the following circumstance: because of race, ethnicity, nation or religion, in this case in having used a bottle of fuel or product accelerating combustion against the entrance door of the mosque of the aforementioned city”.
“No anger in our hearts”
He was indicted on this charge and presented to the judge of freedoms and detention (JLD) then placed in pre-trial detention. On Friday, some 250 people gathered in Morlaix, placards in hand, to denounce the attempted fire of this mosque, pointing to an “Islamophobic climate” in France, noted an AFP journalist.
“No anger or hatred will enter our hearts against this man. On the contrary, we are ready to receive him to understand his motivations,” Méryème Postic, president of the Ti Salam Montroulez association, which manages the mosque, declared to the crowd.