site.btaCourt Extends Detention of Another Bulgarian Arrested for Paris Holocaust Memorial Vandalism

The Blagoevgrad District Court has left in custody a Bulgarian national, identified as K. M., who had been detained in this country under a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by France for alleged participation in an organized crime group, ethnically and racially motivated destruction and damage of another's property after conspiracy with other persons, the Sofia Appellate Prosecution Office said on Monday. Another Bulgarian who had been detained in Sofia on the same allegations was released on bail earlier in the day.

Last week, the State Agency for National Security reported that two Bulgarians suspected of vandalizing the Memorial de la Shoah (the Holocaust Museum) in Paris on May 14 were detained in this country on July 25. A third Bulgarian national has been detained in another EU Member State.

The court in Blagoevgrad accepted the prosecution's arguments that there was a risk that K. M. might abscond in order to thwart and avoid prosecution in France.

The culprits have been identified after an examination of CCTV footage seized in the course of an investigation in France, the prosecution office said. Documents submitted by France indicated that K.M. was an accomplice in the criminal acts committed in the French capital.

The investigation found that 35 graffiti images of red hands were daubed on the wall of the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris and buildings in the 4th and 5th arrondissements in the early hours of May 14. The EAW states that the image of the red hands is associated with the killing of Israeli soldiers in Ramallah in 2000.

Legal proceedings to consider the EAW are to be initiated.