French
Muslims decry religious hatred as mosque stabbing suspect arrested
Man held in
Italy over killing of worshipper in French mosque amid growing concerns over
Islamophobia
Angelique
Chrisafis in Paris
Mon 28 Apr
2025 12.18 BST
French
Muslim leaders have said more must be done to counter anti-Muslim hatred in
France after a man was arrested on suspicion of stabbing a young worshipper to
death inside a mosque in a southern village.
Olivier A,
21, a French national born in Lyon, surrendered to police in Italy on Sunday
after three days on the run, French prosecutors announced on Monday morning.
He is
suspected of killing Aboubakar Cissé, 22, a Malian man who had trained in
France as a carpenter and worked as a volunteer at the mosque in La Grand-Combe
in south-eastern France.
Olivier A is
alleged to have entered the mosque on Friday morning and stabbed Cissé dozens
of times. He is alleged to have filmed his victim in agony with a mobile phone.
In the footage a man can be heard congratulating himself, saying “I did it” and
shouting insults at Allah.
Cissé had
gone to the mosque alone early on Friday morning to pray. His body was
discovered when worshippers began arriving later that morning for prayers.
The incident
in the village in provincial France has caused shock, prompting the president,
Emmanuel Macron, to say there is no place for religious hate in French society
and the prime minister, François Bayrou, to denounce an “Islamophobic” crime.
Mohammed
Moussaoui, the head of the French Muslim council, told France Info radio: “A
great majority of Muslims in France feel that anti-Muslim hatred is not taken
as seriously as other hate.”
He said
Muslims were worried and concerned about the current climate and asked why an
anti-terrorism inquiry had not been opened into the case.
Abdelkrim
Grini, the state prosecutor in the southern city of Alès, told BFMTV on Monday
that the alleged attacker had gone to an Italian police station near Florence
at about 11.30pm local time (2230 BST) on Sunday night.
He said: “We
knew he had left France … It was only a matter of time before we caught him.
The suspect had no option but to hand himself in.”
Grini said
an “anti-Muslim or Islamophobic motive” was the main lead in the investigation,
given the nature of the crime and the fact a worshipper had been targeted while
praying inside a mosque.
He said
there were other elements in the investigation that could suggest the suspect
had a “fascination with death” and had wanted to kill and “be known as a serial
killer”.
Ibrahim
Cissé, the cousin of Aboubakar Cissé, told Le Parisien on Sunday: “My cousin
was targeted because he was Muslim.”
He said he
considered the crime to be terrorism: “It was premeditated, the person
knowingly came to kill someone in a mosque … For us, Aboubakar is the victim of
a terrorist attack.”
The
suspect’s Italian lawyer told Agence France-Presse that his client denied being
motivated by hatred of Islam. He had told investigators he had “killed the
first person he saw” and that “he has said nothing against Islam, nor mosques,”
Giovanni Salvietti said.
The suspect
is understood to have been unemployed and lived in La Grande-Combe. Grini said:
“He was someone who had remained under the radar of the justice system and the
police.”
In La
Grand-Combe, more than 1,000 people gathered on Sunday for a silent march in
memory of the victim, setting out from the Khadidja mosque, where the stabbing
occurred, to the town hall.
Abdallah
Zekri, the rector of a Nîmes mosque, denounced an Islamophobic climate in
France. Several hundred people also gathered in Paris on Sunday to protest
against Islamophobia.
Macron wrote
on social media on Sunday to express support to the family and “to our Muslim
compatriots”. He posted on X: “Racism and hatred based on religion will never
have a place in France.”
The French
government has ordered police to tighten security at mosques around the
country.
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