The deadly stabbing of a Muslim worshiper in a mosque in France has brought about heated complaint of presidency officers who didn’t to begin with deal with it as a imaginable hate crime or display the stage of shock that they had in different deadly assaults.
The sufferer, Aboubakar Cissé, a 21 year-old from Mali, used to be stabbed dozens of instances Friday morning whilst he used to be praying in a mosque in Los angeles Grand-Combe, a small the town in southern France, about 50 miles northwest of Avignon.
The principle suspect, who filmed himself status over the sufferer, used to be heard insulting Allah within the video, which used to be posted on Snapchat, French news media reported.
An area prosecutor to start with suggested — wrongly, it emerged — that the killing had stemmed from a dispute between two worshipers. However on Sunday, that prosecutor, Abdelkrim Grini, stated in a TV interview that the killing used to be being investigated as an “anti-Muslim act” or “an act with Islamophobic connotations.” Different motives are being explored, he added, together with “a fascination with loss of life, a need to kill and a need to be regarded as a serial killer.”
The suspect fled to Italy sooner than turning himself in on Sunday at a police station in Pistoia, a small the town close to Florence, Cécile Gensac, the Nîmes prosecutor, said on Monday. The suspect used to be recognized as a French nationwide of Bosnian starting place, born in 2004, who used to be up to now unknown to the police, however not anything else about him or his perspectives has been made public.
He has now not but been returned to France, which a prosecutor stated may just take weeks, or charged with against the law.
“It’s an Islamophobic crime, it’s an act of terrorism, and nowadays we’re afraid,” Aminata Konaté-Boune, a spokesperson for Mr. Cissé’s Soninke ethnic workforce, stated at a news conference with the sufferer’s circle of relatives on Tuesday. “Day after today, what is going to occur? Will they arrive knocking on our doorways to kill us? Will there be a hunt for Muslims?”
The killing came about the day after a girl was stabbed to death at a high school in Nantes, allegedly by way of every other scholar who used to be fascinated by Hitler. The varsity assault, which additionally wounded 3 others, brought about a robust and swift govt response, prompting critics to accuse the federal government of a double usual.
Bruno Retailleau, France’s conservative inside minister, posted a message on social media at the day of the assault on the mosque expressing improve for the sufferer’s circle of relatives and the Muslim group.
However not like in Nantes, the place he visited the crime scene hours after the assault, he didn’t in an instant rush to the mosque. As an alternative, he traveled on Sunday to Alès, a close-by the town, the place he met with the native prosecutor and mayors.
President Emmanuel Macron of France didn’t remark at the assault till Sunday. “I prolong the improve of the country to his circle of relatives and to our fellow electorate of the Muslim religion,” he stated on social media. “Racism and hatred in keeping with faith won’t ever have a spot in France. Freedom of worship is inviolable.”
Yoro Cissé, the sufferer’s cousin, instructed the inside track company Agence France-Presse on Tuesday that no member of the federal government had contacted his circle of relatives. “We wish to really feel secure; France is a rustic we adore,” he stated. “We wish to really feel like everyone else.”
Ten % of France’s inhabitants is Muslim, in line with a 2023 learn about by way of the National Statistics Institute. Islam has grown, at a time when extra other people profess no non secular association, to develop into the rustic’s second-largest religion.
France, which upholds its personal emblem of secularism referred to as “laïcité” — ensuring freedom of judgment of right and wrong and the neutrality of the state and of a few public areas — has an uneasy dating with Islam. Muslim clothes like headscarves and full-length robes have stirred unending debate and more than a few makes an attempt to prohibit them.
“The least we will be able to say is that the government have been sluggish to react,” to the mosque killing, stated Hakim El Karoui, a Muslim trade marketing consultant and the writer of the e book “Islam, a French Faith.” “Being at the aspect of Muslims isn’t standard when you’re a political candidate in France.”
About 1,000 other people marched silently in Los angeles Grand-Combe on Sunday to honor Mr. Cissé’s reminiscence. However some deplored the absence of politicians, French news media reported.
Any other demonstration used to be arranged the similar day on the Position de l. a. République in Paris on the behest of left-wing politicians and associations.
“This violence is the results of an Islamophobic local weather that has been cultivated for months,” stated Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the chief of the leftist France Unbowed birthday celebration, during the protest. That the inner minister didn’t rush to talk over with the mosque used to be “incomprehensible,” he added.
On Tuesday, Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the Nationwide Meeting, held a minute of silence for Mr. Cissé within the decrease area, even though she stated most sensible lawmakers had now not reached an settlement to take action.
Djibril Cissé, the sufferer’s uncle, stated that he have been surprised by way of the inside track protection of his nephew’s loss of life and by way of the reactions of politicians.
“He used to be a sociable one that used to be a supply of hope for all folks,” he stated.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris.
