Suspected attempted bank attack in Paris released

Uthe woman arrested at the end of March for alleged involvement in a plan to attack the Bank of America headquarters in Paris, was released under precautionary measures, today mentioned a source close to the case.

The young woman is one of the two Belgian citizens who were the subject of a European arrest warrant in this case and handed over during the summer to French justice and subsequently indicted in Paris and imprisoned.

“ My client, 24 years old and without a criminal record, says from her first statement that she knew nothing about this plan, and there is no element linking her to a violent ideology,” said lawyer Werner-Edouard de Saeger van Nattenhasdonck.

The plan of attack, frustrated by a police intervention, “appears to be associated” with the pro-Iranian group “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya” (Hayi), “although this has not yet been formally established at this stage,” the French National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) reported in April.

In March, the group claimed the authorship of several attacks against the Jewish community in Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

One synagogue was the subject of an attack in Liège, Belgium, on 9 March, another in Rotterdam on 13 March, and an explosion occurred in front of a Jewish school in Amsterdam the next day, causing some material damage, but without causing any injury.

Already on 23 March four ambulances belonging to Hatzola Northwest, an Israeli volunteer organization providing emergency medical assistance in the UK, were damaged by a fire of criminal origin.

In the case of Bank of America, the plan was to put an improvised explosive device in front of the establishment. According to Pnat, the adolescents were recruited for the operation and instructed to film the action, receiving in return an amount between “500 and 1000 euros”.

Three teenagers are suspected of making a first attempt on the night from 26 to 27 March, but were prevented by the presence of a police car in front of the scene, according to the anti-terrorist prosecutor.

Two are accused of starting over the next night before being interrupted by the police.

The device could have generated “a large ball of fire several meters in diameter and propagated a fire,” according to Pnat.

In early autumn, one of the minors in provisional detention was released under electronic bracelet monitoring.