PARIS: Three men suspected of supplying guns for an attack plot thwarted ahead of the first round of France’s presidential election have been charged with terror offences, a judicial source said.
The foiled plan in the southern city of Marseille had sparked fears that the closing days of the campaign could be a target for extremists before the April 23 first round in the country’s most unpredictable election in decades.
The three men — a 24-year-old Chechen refugee, as well as Kosovar brothers aged 19 and 35 — were accused on Friday of participating in a terrorist conspiracy as well as weapons charges, the source said.
Authorities believe they provided help to the alleged attack plotters, 23-year-old Clement Baur and Mahiedine Merabet, 29, notably by supplying weapons.
After searching the suspected plotters’ shared Marseille apartment, authorities said they uncovered an Uzi sub-machine gun, pistols, three kilogrammes of TATP explosives and a homemade grenade as well as a Daesh group flag.
Baur and Merabet were charged Sunday with participating in a terrorist conspiracy, though authorities have not determined what the alleged plotters planned to target.
Two days after their April 18 arrests, 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi shot dead a policeman on Paris’s Champs Elysees avenue before being killed by police gunfire.
A note praising IS was found near his body.
More than 230 people have been killed in a string of jihadist attacks in France since January 2015.
