Serbian police arrested 11 people accused of defacing Jewish sites and placing pigs’ heads outside mosques in and around Paris this month. Police said the suspects were acting under the direction of a foreign intelligence service.

The Serbian Interior Ministry announced that the arrests took place in Belgrade and in Velika Plana, a town about 100 kilometres south of the capital, in coordination with national security services. A twelfth suspect remains at large and is accused of training the group “on the instructions of a foreign intelligence service,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Their objective was also to spread ideas advocating and inciting hatred, discrimination and violence based on differences,” the ministry added.

French investigators had been pursuing leads since early September, when nine pig heads were discovered outside mosques in Paris and nearby towns. The act, considered deeply offensive in Islam, sparked outrage and fears of rising anti-Muslim hatred.

Between April and September, the group is also accused of throwing green paint at the Holocaust Memorial, several synagogues and a Jewish restaurant. They allegedly placed antisemitic stickers with “genocidal” messages and left pig heads at religious sites, some tagged with the name of French president Emmanuel Macron.

In Germany, the same network allegedly left “concrete skeletons” inscribed with inflammatory messages at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

FOREIGN INTERFERENCE SUSPECTED

France has launched several investigations in recent years into vandalism believed to be linked to foreign actors, with suspicion frequently directed at Moscow. Posters depicting a Russian soldier with the caption “Say thank you to the victorious Soviet soldier” were plastered on the Arc de Triomphe in September.

According to AFP, the Serbs arrested earlier in France were suspected of acting “in order to serve the interests of a foreign power.” The new arrests in Serbia are seen as part of a broader investigation into coordinated campaigns targeting Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe.

The Interior Ministry said the 11 suspects will be brought before prosecutors on charges including racial discrimination and espionage.

France is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel and the United States, as well as one of Europe’s biggest Muslim populations

– Ends

With inputs from agencies