PARIS (AP) — Three people were released Monday pending further investigation after allegedly placing five coffins at the base of the Eiffel Tower, a Paris landmark that will feature prominently at the upcoming Olympics.
According to officials from the Paris prosecutor’s office, the three – citizens of Bulgaria, Germany and Ukraine – placed the coffins, covered with a French flag with the inscription “French soldiers of Ukraine”, near the Eiffel Tower on Saturday.
The motive for the incident was unclear. France is on the highest alert level ahead of the disaster from July 26 to August. 11 Summer Games in Paris and the lavish open-air ceremony on the River Seine.
The three men were questioned by an investigating judge on Monday. Prosecutors asked to charge them with premeditated violence, officials told the Associated Press. Placing coffins at the foot of the Paris monument that millions of tourists visit every year “is considered an act of psychological violence” and left monument employees and others “unable to work,” officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation.
However, the investigating judge did not file charges but named the three as assisted witnesses, a special status under French law, the public prosecutor’s office said. They remain at large pending further investigation.
Those arrested in the Eiffel Tower incident include the driver of the vehicle carrying the coffins, a 39-year-old Bulgarian, and two people associated with him: a 25-year-old German man and a 16-year-old Ukrainian, who was arrested aboard a Flixbus en route to Paris-Berlin, officials said.
On Friday, French authorities filed preliminary terrorism charges against an 18-year-old accused of plotting to attack spectators at football matches at the Paris Olympics. It was the first foiled plot to target the Games, which start in eight weeks.
The Olympic rings will be visible on the Eiffel Tower. The Olympic and Paralympic medals in Paris are embedded with pieces of a hexagonal piece of iron from the monument.
The Eiffel Tower coffins appeared after other strange incidents in recent months that worried French authorities.
Last month, red-handed graffiti appeared on the Holocaust memorial in Paris. And in October, shortly after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, stencils of blue Stars of David appeared on buildings in Paris.
French authorities accused Russian security services of fueling the controversy surrounding the stars. French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said both incidents involved people paid to destabilize and drive wedges into French society.
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Surk reported from Nice, France.
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