The reasons and the motivation of the terrible attack of Thursday morning June 8 in Annecy remain for the moment without explanation. Nothing had filtered Thursday evening from the custody of the suspect, Abdelmessih H., a Syrian Christian refugee from Sweden. Madness, tragedy of exile, aftermath of the war in Syria, family crisis or personal drift: all the hypotheses remain open, including the terrorist track that the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) “assessed” Thursday night again “in view of the elements in [s]has possession ».
Born in 1991, Abdelmessih H. left Syria after the outbreak of the civil war which broke out in his country in March 2011. Mobilized in the army, he had deserted to go to Turkey, according to his mother, where he had met his future wife, Syrian like him. The couple reportedly left for Sweden in 2013, where they were granted political asylum in November of that year. At the time, Stockholm was massively hosting Syrian refugees. Between 2013 and 2015 alone, the country registered 98,238 asylum applications from Syrians. Following the 2015 migration crisis, the numbers dropped drastically, but Syrians remain the leading asylum seekers in Europe.
“We met in Turkey, fell in love and came here [en Suède]. After two years we got married, but he couldn’t get Swedish citizenship, so he decided to leave the country. We separated because I didn’t want to leave Sweden.”said his wife, joined by AFP.
Father of a 3 year old
Although he has benefited from “subsidiary protection” in Sweden since November 2013 and had a residence permit valid until 2025, Abdelmessih H. could not be naturalized Swedish. According to the Swedish Migration Board, he had applied for citizenship for the first time four years after his arrival, but too early, the minimum period of presence being five years. He had made a second request in 2018, also refused without knowing the cause. According to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, at the same time, he had received a suspended fine for committing benefit fraud by receiving study aid and unemployment. He then appealed against this refusal several times and, after his appeals were rejected, immediately filed a third request in the summer of 2022.
But he left Sweden before receiving the answer to his last request, “eight months ago”, according to his wife, whom he divorced. He then lived in Trollhätan, in western Sweden. The couple, who have a 3-year-old child, had not been registered at the same address since 1er November 2022. It seems that he arrived at the end of October in France, in Annecy, after passing successively to Italy in May and to Switzerland at the beginning of October where he had each time filed an asylum application. His application in France was registered in Grenoble on November 8, 2022.
You have 49.35% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.