Russia link suspected as Bulgarians jailed for vandalising Paris Jewish memorial | France
A French court on Friday jailed four Bulgarians for desecrating a Jewish monument where red handprints were found last year, in what prosecutors say could be a foreign intervention linked to Russia.
The Paris criminal court sentenced Georgi Filipov and Kiril Milushev, who were identified as the perpetrators, to two years in prison, and Nikolay Ivanov and Mircho Angelov, who were considered the “brains” of the operation, to four years and three years in prison, respectively. Angelov is still at large.
All four were banned from entering French territory for life.
The trial was the first of its kind in France and was one of a series of similar crimes suspected of being planned by a foreign power with the aim of destabilizing.
The four defendants were not tried for acting on behalf of a foreign power; This aggravating circumstance was added to France’s criminal code only after the incident occurred.
But the judges said the fact that foreign interference had taken place was “indisputable” and that the aim was to “confuse public opinion, exploit existing divisions and further fragment French society”.
The vandalism was staged amid rising tensions in France over the October 2023 war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Covered in red handprints, the wall lists 3,900 people honored for protecting Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II.
Several other red handprints were found in areas near the center of Paris.
The prosecutor’s office said a security guard caught two people placing a stencil on the monument.
Investigators identified the men through security footage, then discovered the three boarded a bus to Belgium the next morning, then flew to Bulgaria.
The defendants present blamed their absent accomplices, calling Angelov a “leader” and denying any ideological motivation.
Filipov swore that he did not realize that he had tagged the monument known as the “wall of the virtuous”.
He also denied accusations that his hiring was related to his apparent neo-Nazi connections, including having a swastika tattoo and posting Nazi salutes on social media.
He said he had put it behind him, adding: “I’ve made bad choices in the past.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office said the red handprint incident, likely “orchestrated by Russian intelligence services”, was one of such suspected acts of foreign interference.
Viginum, the French authority that tracks foreign interference online, said the red hand incident was exploited by “actors linked to Russia” in X.
