Bordeaux (AFP)
Officials said that the French authorities, fearing a possible attack, arrested a 26-year-old young man before the start of the Olympic torch relay in Bordeaux.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on the X website (formerly Twitter): “A person who was planning to carry out a violent act during the Olympic torch relay in Bordeaux was questioned.”
An investigation was opened against a young man named Alex J, after the Internet Extremism Monitoring Authority in France found his posts referring to the mass murder that occurred in 2014 in California.
The man who was arrested on Tuesday appeared before an investigating judge on Thursday. He was charged with criminal conspiracy, and was released before trial, while remaining under judicial supervision.
Prosecutors demanded that the accused be kept in detention, and indicated their intention to appeal the decision.
The Olympic flame passed, amid tight security measures, through the southwestern city, as part of a national tour before the start of the Olympics on July 26, and Bordeaux will host several football matches within the games.
Sources said that the public prosecutor recommended that Alex G be detained after he admitted to thinking about carrying out an attack.
“No reference was made to the Olympic flame,” Bordeaux Public Prosecutor Frederic Porteri noted in a press release.
According to a police source, Alex G shared a video clip showing Elliot Rodger, who killed six people before shooting himself in California in 2014, and accompanied it with the phrase, “We miss you, Elliot.”
The police seized “two pistols, one of which was designed to fire rubber projectiles, several mobile phones, and a computer,” during a search of the suspect’s home in a suburb of Bordeaux.
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