JAKARTA – Serbian authorities arrested 11 people on suspicion of committing hate-reflection in France and Germany on orders from foreign intelligence services.
They are accused of placing the pig’s head outside nine mosques, sparking anger and concern over the rise of anti-Muslim hatred, Serbian foreign intelligence services said.
Some of them were marked by the name of French President Emmanuel Macron. Jewish sites inside and around Paris were also damaged this month, including some with stickers that read “genocide”.
Those arrested were also suspected of throwing green paint at the Holocaust memorial, some synagoge, and a Jewish restaurant, all in Paris, and placing a concrete “scratch” in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
The suspects were trained in Serbia and all were Serbian citizens, the Ministry of Home Affairs said.
The 12th suspect, identified with the initials MG, allegedly trained them “on instructions from the foreign intelligence service” and is on the run, he said.
“Their goal is also to spread ideas that promote and incite hatred, discrimination and violence based on the differences in the personal characteristics of certain groups mentioned above,” the ministry said, quoted by The National September 30.
However, the ministry did not identify the foreign intelligence service suspected of ordering the training, or the identity of the fugitive suspect.
Police investigations in France found that the pig’s head had been placed there by foreign nationals who were soon leaving the country.
French investigators quickly identified a vehicle with Serbian license plates and Croatian phone numbers related to crimes near the mosque.
They were arrested in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and in Velika Plana, a city about 100 km south, in collaboration with the security service.
All these crimes were committed from April to September 2025, the ministry said.
He added that the group of 11 people will be tried for violations including racial discrimination and espionage.
It is known, France is home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel and the US, as well as a substantial Muslim community that sympathizes with the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
French authorities have carried out a series of investigations in recent years against acts of vandalism linked to foreign interference, with many observers accusing Moscow.
The attacks were often aimed at the Jewish and Muslim communities of the country, as tensions escalated as the Israeli-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Several EU countries have reported spikes in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic hatred since the beginning of the war in October 2023, according to the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency.
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