(JTA) — A Muslim man who said he was planning to attack the main synagogue of Marseille was sentenced to two years in prison.
A Marseille court sentenced Mohamed Chebab, 33, on Tuesday, a little over a year after he was arrested for praising the Islamic State terrorist group, l’Express news site reported. He was convicted of supporting acts of terrorism.
Counterterrorist researchers monitoring jihadist circles in Marseille, a city in southern France, flagged Chebab, according to the report. After his arrest in May 2016, Chebab told law enforcement that he had been planning to travel to Syria to fight with jihadists there and to Belgium, to the heavily Muslim Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, to meet “brothers” there.
He also said he was planning to “smoke some Jews, at least three” at the Grand Synagogue of Marseille, l’Express reported. At the time of his arrest, Chebab cried out for Allah and yelled slogans supportive of the Islamic State, promising the police officers who seized him he would behead their children.
Separately, a 23-year-old man was charged with plotting to assassinate French President Emmanuel Macron at France’s Bastille Day parade in Paris, a judicial source told the AFP news agency on Monday.
The self-described nationalist, who was arrested last week, told investigators he wanted to kill Macron at the July 14 national day march, a source close to the investigation said. He said he also wanted to attack “Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals,” the source added.
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