|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
(A7) The Paris public prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the 19-year-old man was convicted after a swift trial overnight Friday on charges of sharing bomb-making instructions on social media, posts inciting hate and death threats as well as posts with personal information that put people at risk.
The man, who had been detained on Wednesday morning at his home in the Alsace region of eastern France, ran a group called “French Aryan division” on the social media channel Telegram, the statement said, according to AP.
The prosecutor’s office said his alleged comments that triggered the probe by its unit, dedicated to fighting online hate, didn’t specifically target the Paris Olympics, which kick off with a high-security opening ceremony on Friday.
The Paris chief of police said last month that Islamist terrorism is the main security worry ahead of the Olympics, and did not mention threats by neo-Nazis.
In April, French anti-terrorism authorities arrested a 16-year-old youth who said on social media that he wanted to die “a martyr” at the Olympic Games.
France, which has been on high alert in the wake of terrorist attacks in recent years, raised its terror alert warning to its highest level in March, following an attack in Moscow which was claimed by ISIS.
France was hit by a series of Islamist attacks, including the January 2015 attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris.
In November of that year, 130 people were killed in a series of jihadist attacks in Paris claimed by ISIS.
The French capital’s security operation ahead of the Olympic Games involves up to 45,000 police and gendarmes, plus a 10,000-strong military force that is patrolling streets and sites in the Paris region and carrying out other security missions.
