Eleven arrested in Serbia over anti-religious hate crimes in France, Germany

French authorities have confirmed the arrest of 11 individuals in Serbia in connection with a string of coordinated hate crimes targeting religious communities in France and Germany. The arrests mark a significant development in an ongoing investigation into extremist acts intended to provoke interreligious and interethnic hostility.

According to French law enforcement, the suspects are believed to be responsible for a series of provocative and inflammatory incidents, including the deliberate placement of pig heads near Muslim religious sites—a deeply offensive act in Islamic tradition, Caliber.Az reports, citing foreign media.

The group is also linked to multiple acts of vandalism against Jewish institutions, including defacing the Holocaust Memorial Museum, several synagogues, and a Jewish-owned restaurant with green paint.

These individuals were allegedly trained by another Serbian national, currently on the run and acting on the instructions of a foreign intelligence service.

These pig heads, an animal considered unclean by Islam, were discovered on the morning of September 9 on public roads in Paris—in front of mosques in the 15th, 18th, and 20th arrondissements—in front of the entrance to the mosque in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), as well as in Montrouge, Malakoff (Hauts-de-Seine), and Gentilly (Val-de-Marne). The name “Macron” was written on one of the pig heads.

The very next day, the Paris public prosecutor's office stated that the heads had been “left by foreign nationals who immediately left the country, with the clear intention of causing unrest within the nation.”

At the end of April, the Shoah Memorial, three synagogues, and a restaurant were sprayed with green paint in Paris—three Serbs have been charged and imprisoned in France in connection with this investigation.

By Vafa Guliyeva