According to police sources, investigations have been launched in Paris against a couple who were involved in Iranian plans to assassinate Jews in Germany and France. As the AFP news agency learned from police circles and sources familiar with the case, 34-year-old Abdelkrim S. and his 33-year-old partner Sabrina B. were taken into custody on May 4.
An investigation was launched against the couple for joining a criminal terrorist organization. The French online newspaper “Médiapart” reported on Thursday about their plans under the code name “Marco Polo”.
A report from the French domestic intelligence service DGSI from early May, which AFP was able to see, states that the case represents the resurgence of “Iranian state terrorism” in Europe. Since 2015, “the Iranian services have resumed a practice of targeted assassinations.” The threat posed by this has increased in the “context of war between Israel and Hamas has increased even further.”
According to the information, three German-Israelis in Munich and Berlin, as well as a former employee of an Israeli security company living in Paris and three of his former colleagues in the Paris region were considered possible targets.
Attacks on “civilian targets”
According to the DGSI paper, Iran is pursuing the goal of attacking “civilian targets” in the Iranian opposition and in the “Jewish/Israeli community” To spread insecurity. Iran is recruiting criminals, especially drug traffickers, in Europe for the attacks.
According to police sources, the Franco-Algerian Abdelkrim S. was also already known to the police. He had been sentenced to ten years in prison for his involvement in a homicide in Marseille. However, he was released from prison under legal supervision in July 2023.
“Cell” for violent crimes in Germany
According to the DSGI report, S. is suspected of leading the “cell” commissioned by Iran to commit violent acts in Germany and France. He met the “coordinator” of the cell through a former cellmate. According to the information, he was a powerful drug dealer from the Lyon area who was probably in Iran in May.
S. is suspected of having traveled from France to Germany several times, despite the legal supervision requirement, to scout out his attack targets. The trips reportedly took him primarily to Berlin, and he was accompanied by his wife. S. reportedly denies the allegations and claims that the trips were only for shopping.
According to a police source, investigators attribute four fires between December 2023 and early January 2024 in companies in southern France owned by people of Israeli descent to the cell. S. stated in custody that he did not set the fires. He stated that he had acted as an intermediary between the client and other parties in an attempted insurance fraud on the Telegram messaging service.
Iran has been repeatedly blamed for attacks in Europe in the past. For example, the government in Tehran at the time was considered to be the mastermind of an attack on the Berlin restaurant “Mykonos”, in which four Kurdish exile politicians were murdered in September 1992. (AFP)
