A couple arrested in Paris are believed to have been involved in plans to kill Jews living in Germany and France on Iran’s orders, security sources familiar with the case told AFP.
Abdelkrim S., 34, and his partner Sabrina B., 33, were charged with forming a gang and joining a terrorist organization on May 4 and were remanded in custody, the sources said.
Is Europe a playground for “paid assassins”?
This case, known as “Marco Polo”, was reported Thursday by the French news site Mediapart, in which Europe “has once again become” a field of action for “paid assassins” from Iran.
A report by the Directorate-General for Internal Security (Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure, DGSI), drawn up in early May and brought to AFP’s attention, highlights the resurgence of “Iranian state terrorism” in Europe for years. “Since 2015, the Iranians have resumed the practice of targeted assassinations,” according to the DGSI, and “the threat has worsened further (…) in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.”
The aim is to hit “political targets” and increase the “feeling of insecurity among the opposition” to the Iranian regime and the “Jewish-Israeli community”. To this end, Iran is accused of recruiting criminals in Europe, especially drug traffickers.
The prisoner’s past
Abdelkrim S., involved in the “Marco Polo” case, had already been involved in the justice system: he was sentenced to ten years in prison for his involvement in a murder in Marseille and was released in July 2023 on condition and under judicial control. The French-Algerian was allegedly the “key player” in the French “nucleus”, acting on behalf of Iran and planning violent actions on French and German soil.
A former inmate is said to have put him in touch with the cell’s “coordinator.” The “coordinator” is described as a major drug trafficker in the Lyon region and is believed to have traveled to Iran in May, according to the DGSI report. The targets identified were a former employee of an Israeli private security company living in Paris and three of his former colleagues in the Paris region, as well as three Israeli-Germans in Munich and Berlin.
Abdelkrim S. is said to have travelled to Germany, despite his parole conditions and judicial review, for identification purposes, particularly in Berlin, in the presence of his wife. The person in question denies this, claiming that he simply went shopping.
French authorities also accuse this cell of responsibility for plans to commit four arson attacks against companies in the south of France “owned by Israeli citizens” between December 2023 and early January 2024.
According to AFP sources in the French police, the person in question denies the accusation and claims to have been an intermediary between the perpetrator of the moral crime and four other people as part of a plan to commit insurance fraud.
Sources: APE-MPE, AFP