Algerian Man Charged Over Synagogue Arson Attack in France

A 33-year-old Algerian man was charged on Wednesday with attempted murder and other crimes after an arson attack on a synagogue in southern France last week, prosecutors said.

Officials said the man had expressed deep hatred of Jews and told investigators that he had acted to “support the Palestinian cause.” But he denied that he had intended to cause harm, France’s national antiterrorism prosecutor’s office said in a statement issued Wednesday.

In the attack early on Saturday morning, several fires were set at the Beth Yaacov synagogue in La Grande Motte, a resort town on the southern coast of France.

Five people who lived on the first floor of the building and were inside at the time, including the synagogue’s rabbi, were unharmed in the attack. A police officer was slightly injured when a gas canister near a burning vehicle exploded.

French authorities have described the attack as an act of antisemitic terrorism.

The man, identified only by the initials E.H.K., was charged with attempted murder — on terrorist grounds and motivated by race or religion — as well as taking part in a terrorist conspiracy, arson and assaulting police officers. {snip}

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The prosecutor’s office said that police questioning, and the man’s social media posts, appeared to show that he had been “radicalized in the practice of his religion” over several months {snip}

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Three other people were also arrested after the attack. {snip}

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In the weeks before the attack, the main suspect had legally acquired a handgun and searched online for local synagogues, Jewish holidays and the timing of Sabbath, the prosecutor’s office said.

The attacker carried an ax inscribed with mentions of “Palestine, Gaza, and the blood of Muslims,” the prosecutor’s office said, although it did not detail what those inscriptions were. During the attack, he wore a kaffiyeh, the scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian identity, and he had tied a Palestinian flag around his waist.

The man had not been on the radar of French or foreign antiterrorism services, and French authorities have said that he did not appear to be connected to any larger organization.

The man, who was born in Blida, Algeria, had filed a request for residency papers and was in France legally, the prosecutor’s office said. He had no job or income and was living in Nîmes {snip}

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