French prosecutors say police have tracked three suspects involved in last week's defacing of the Paris Holocaust memorial across the border into Belgium.
Speaking on Wednesday, prosecutors said the suspects were caught on security footage as they moved through Paris before "departing for Belgium from the Bercy bus station" in southeast Paris.
The investigators added that the suspects' bus reservations "had been made from Bulgaria".
On 14 May, red hands were found daubed on the Wall of the Righteous at the Paris Holocaust memorial, which lists 3,900 people honoured for saving Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II.
Prosecutors are investigating damage to a protected historical building for national, ethnic, racial or religious motives.
🚫 «Mains rouges» sur le Mur des Justes du Mémorial de la Shoah : la Russie mise en cause
— Libération (@libe) May 21, 2024
Selon le Canard enchaîné, les enquêteurs soupçonnent Moscou d’avoir commandité les actes de vandalisme. https://t.co/BsojPj1Wso
Russia suspected of graffiti campaign
Similar tags were found elsewhere in the Marais district of central Paris, historically a centre of French Jewish life.
The hands echoed imagery used earlier this month by students demonstrating for a ceasefire in Israel's campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
Their discovery prompted a new wave of outrage over anti-Semitism.
In February, Paris' internal security service suspected Russia's FSB security service of being behind an October graffiti campaign tagging stars of David on Paris buildings.
A Moldovan couple was arrested in the case.
(with newswires)
