Nine people arrested Tuesday, March 23 following a crackdown in the Kurdish environment in France were indicted on Friday March 26, in particular for "terrorist criminal association", AFP learned this Saturday from a judicial source.
To read also: Suspicion of "terrorism": ten people placed in police custody in Kurdish circles
These nine people were also indicted for "terrorist financing" and "organized gang extortion in connection with a terrorist enterprise," said this source.
Four of them were remanded in custody, one under electronic surveillance and another under judicial supervision.
The debate before the judge of freedoms and detention on the placement in pre-trial detention of the last three must be held later.
A tenth person arrested was released without prosecution at this stage.
A helping hand in Marseille and the Paris region
This crackdown was carried out in Marseille and in the Paris region, at the request of an anti-terrorist judge, as part of a judicial investigation relating to activities linked to the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
This Kurdish separatist organization, in armed struggle for decades against the Turkish central power, is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey and many countries such as France and the United States.
On February 21, 2020, four people were indicted, in particular for terrorist financing, as part of an investigation into fundraising for the PKK in southwestern France.
Read also: Erdogan blows hot and cold with Europe
The leader of La France insoumise (LFI) Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced on his Facebook page the "
usual method of Macronian intimidation
" and the "
criminalization of militant activities of Kurds in France by the Quai d'Orsay and the Interior Ministry well aligned with that of the Turkish dictator
”, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"
Emmanuel Macron is normalizing his relations with Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the backs of the Kurds
" added the French Communist Party in a statement.
The two leaders exchanged in early March in a videoconference interview, after months of intense tension between their two countries, which are opposed on several issues such as Libya, Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean.
