LA GRAND-COMBE, France: A French man accused of stabbing a 22-year-old Malian to death in a mosque appears to have acted alone on an obsessive “urge to kill,” a prosecutor said Friday.
The killing of Aboubakar Cisse in La Grand-Combe on Friday last week prompted President Emmanuel Macron to insist there was no place for religious hate in French society.
A French national of Bosnian origin suspected of stabbing Cisse 57 times and then filming his victim writhing in agony surrendered to police in Italy and is awaiting extradition to France.
Cecile Gensac, prosecutor for the nearby southern city of Nimes, said the 20-year-old suspect, named as Olivier Hadzovic, had been “driven by a fierce desire to kill someone and failing that, to commit suicide.”
He told someone online he would “do it in the street,” before considering attacking the mosque. Once inside, he wrote: “He’s black. I’m going to do it.”
He seemed to have “profoundly personal motives,” and the crime was not being treated as “terrorist” as not linked to an “ideological claim,” Gensac added.
Earlier, some 700 people prayed for Cisse at a funeral at the same mosque where he was a helper. Worshippers prayed in front of the coffin covered by a green cloth.
Cisse, who arrived in France as a teenager without papers, was originally from Yaguine in southwestern Mali, where he is due to be buried at a later date.
“This is an absolutely incredible act of hatred in a very peaceful place,” Dominique Sopo, a representative of campaign group SOS Racisme, told AFP.
Hundreds more prayed for the victim at a town just outside Paris.
“With the lack of support in the media and from politicians, we’re really sad and we’re really scared,” said Abdelghani Bentrari, in charge of the mosque in the town of Tremblay.
France has the largest Muslim community in the European Union, and the murder has put Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, a hard-line right-winger with a tough stance on immigration, under particular pressure.
He has not visited the scene of the killing in La Grand-Combe and has been criticized for not finding time to meet Cisse’s family.
Speaking to CNews, a broadcaster accused of fostering far-right views, Retailleau this week said it was “difficult” to find Cisse’s family because he was in France without a residence permit.
French lawmakers on Tuesday observed a minute’s silence to honor Cisse and some lawmakers met with his relatives.
According to a source close to the case, Retailleau will meet Cisse’s family in Paris on Monday, when his coffin will be in the capital for another memorial.
Cisse, nicknamed “Bouba,” was born in Mali in 2003.
He crossed the Mediterranean and arrived in the Paris region in 2018, his uncle told AFP. He traveled to the south of France in 2019 because “he did not want to be a burden” for relatives.
In Grand Combe, residents remembered him as a quiet young man who helped clean the mosque and sometimes brought pizza to share despite having little money.
The prosecutor said the suspect came from a family of non-practicing Christians with 11 children. He was “very, very often” on social media, where he had watched violent videos, including of people cutting themselves.
In the video made just after the stabbing, the killer congratulated himself, saying “I did it” and insulted “Allah.”
A witness said that the suspect had described himself as “schizophrenic” after the murder.
A man identified as the suspect’s father told broadcaster BFMTV on Friday his son was “crazy” and apologized to Cisse’s family.
Mourad Battikh, a lawyer representing the victim’s family, said earlier the murder should be reclassified as “a terrorist attack.”
“The Muslim community must be treated in the same way as any other citizens,” he said.
