Serbia arrests 11 for placing pig heads outside mosques in France

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BELGRADE (Reuters) -Serbian police have arrested 11 people suspected of placing pig heads outside mosques and targeting Jewish sites in and around Paris this month on the orders of a foreign intelligence service, the interior ministry said in a statement on Monday.

As well as placing the pig heads outside at least nine mosques, those arrested are suspected of throwing green paint on the Holocaust Museum, several synagogues and a Jewish restaurant, all in Paris, and putting concrete “skeletons” in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

The suspects were trained in Serbia and are all Serbian, the interior ministry said.

Another suspect, identified in the statement by the initials M.G., is suspected of training them “on the instructions of a foreign intelligence service” and is on the run, it said.

“Their goal was also to spread ideas that advocate and incite hatred, discrimination and violence based on differences in the aforementioned personal characteristics of certain groups of people,” the statement said.

It did not say which foreign intelligence service it suspected of ordering the training, or the nationality of the fugitive suspect.

A police investigation in France, which has Europe’s largest population of Muslims, for whom eating pork is forbidden, found that the pig heads had been placed there by foreign nationals who immediately left the country.

France has accused Russia of trying to sow discord in the past. Three Serbians accused of links to a “foreign power” were arrested after synagogues and a Holocaust memorial were defaced with green paint in May.

Serbia, which aims to join the EU, has close relations with Russia and is the only European country that has not introduced sanctions on Moscow.

All crimes were committed from April to September 2025, the ministry statement said.

The suspects will be brought to the premises of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Smederevo for questioning within 48 hours.

(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Aidan Lewis)