A Frenchman who stabbed to death a Muslim worshipper at a southern France mosque and filmed the victim’s final moments has been arrested by the police in Italy, prosecutors said Monday.
The killing of Aboubakar Cisse, a young Malian, on Friday in a village in provincial France caused shock, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to say there was no place for religious hate in French society and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to denounce an "Islamophobic" crime.
The suspect, a French national born in Lyon in 2004 and named only as Olivier A., "surrendered himself to a police station in Pistoia" near Florence in central Italy on Sunday, Abdelkrim Grini, the prosecutor of the southern city of Ales, told AFP.
He had been on the run for three days in the wake of the murder.
"This is very satisfying for me as a prosecutor, said Grini, who is in charge of the case.
"Faced with the effectiveness of the measures put in place, the suspect had no option but to hand himself in – and that is the best thing he could have done."
On Friday, after initially praying alongside Cisse, a young Malian in his 20s, the suspect stabbed the worshipper dozens of times and then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam.
They were alone in the mosque at the time and Cisse's body was only discovered when worshippers began arriving later that morning for Friday prayers.
The attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region was the latest in a series of deadly stabbings in France in recent years.
France is home to the largest Muslim community in the European Union.
A European arrest warrant will be issued for the suspect's transfer across the border to France, the prosecutor said, adding that could take "a few days or a few weeks."
More than 70 French police officers had been mobilized since Friday to "locate and arrest" the perpetrator, considered "potentially extremely dangerous," the prosecutor said.
"After boasting about his act, after practically claiming responsibility for it, he made comments that would suggest he intended to commit similar acts again," Grini had said Sunday.
In the video, the suspect made just after committing his crime, he congratulated himself, saying "I did it" and insulting Allah.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Monday congratulated all those involved after the suspect surrendered.
"The magistrates and investigators have shown great determination and professionalism, which has enabled them to achieve results in a very short space of time," he said on X.
The murder has placed Retailleau, a hardline right-winger with a tough stance on immigration, under pressure.
While he met Grini in Ales at the weekend, he conspicuously did not visit the scene of the killing in La Grand-Combe.
The suspect, who is from a Bosnian family and unemployed, lived in La Grande-Combe.
"He was someone who had remained under the radar of the justice system and the police, and who had never been in the news until these tragic events," Grini had said.
In La Grand-Combe, more than 1,000 people gathered on Sunday for a silent march in memory of the victim. They marched from the Khadidja Mosque, where the stabbing occurred, to the town hall.
Abdallah Zekri, rector of a Nimes mosque, denounced an Islamophobic climate and said he felt "feelings of anger and hatred towards those who committed this crime."
Several hundred people also gathered in Paris on Sunday, including left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who accused Retailleau of cultivating an "Islamophobic climate."
President Emmanuel Macron expressed "the nation's support" to the victim's family and "to our Muslim compatriots."
"Racism and hatred based on religion will never have a place in France," he said on X on Sunday.
Retailleau has ordered police to tighten security at mosques around the country.
