Hawzah News Agency- French Prime Minister Francois Bayron on Saturday denounced the fatal stabbing of a Muslim worshipper inside a mosque as police hunted the killer, who filmed his victim as he lay dying.
The attacker stabbed the worshipper dozens of times then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam in Friday's attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region of southern France.
"We stand with the victim's loved ones, with the believers who are so shocked. State resources are mobilized to ensure the killer is apprehended and punished'', wrote Bayrou.
Earlier Saturday, investigators said they were treating the killing as a possible Islamophobic crime.
The footage taken by the killer showed him insulting "Allah", the Arabic term for God, just after he carried out the attack and also the alleged perpetrator sent the video he had filmed with his phone, showing the victim writhing in agony, to another person, who then shared it on a social media platform before deleting it. The killing itself was not shown on the images posted on social media but was filmed by security cameras inside the mosque.
According to another source, who also asked not to be named, the suspected perpetrator, while not apprehended, has been identified as a French citizen of Bosnian origin who is not a Muslim.
The victim and the attacker were alone inside the mosque at the time of the incident. After initially praying alongside the man, the attacker then stabbed the victim up to 50 times before fleeing the scene and The body of the victim was only discovered later in the morning when other worshippers arrived at the mosque for Friday prayers.
According to several people AFP spoke to at the scene on Friday, the victim was a young man who arrived from Mali a few years ago and was "very well-known" in the village, where he was highly regarded.
On Friday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described the murder as "appalling".He expressed his "support for the victim's family and solidarity with the Muslim community affected by this barbaric violence in their place of worship on the day of prayer''.
Source: French 24
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