French authorities announced Monday that a man suspected of fatally stabbing a young Malian man inside a mosque in southern France has been arrested in Italy.
Abdelkrim Grini, the public prosecutor of Ales in the Gard region — where the attack occurred on Friday — told BFM TV that the suspect turned himself in at a police station near Florence late Sunday night, between 11 and 11:30 p.m.
“We were aware he had fled France… it was only a matter of time before we caught him,” Grini stated.
Discussing possible motives, Grini noted that while an anti-Muslim bias is the primary line of inquiry, investigators are also exploring other factors, including a possible obsession with death and a desire to be seen as a serial killer.
The attack, which was captured on video and circulated on Snapchat, has drawn widespread condemnation from French politicians.
The suspect, described as an unemployed man from a Bosnian family with ties to the Gard region, had previously remained unknown to police and judicial authorities, Grini said.
In La Grand-Combe, where the stabbing took place at the Khadidja Mosque, more than 1,000 people gathered on Sunday for a silent march in memory of the victim, Aboubakar Cisse, who was in his twenties. Participants walked from the mosque to the town hall in a show of solidarity.
Later that day, several hundred demonstrators also gathered in Paris, among them three-time presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who criticized Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau for fostering an “Islamophobic climate.”
President Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack, writing on X (formerly Twitter) that “racism and hatred based on religion will never have a place in France,” and expressing his support for the victim’s family and the Muslim community.
