Tensions in Dijon: six members of the Chechen community arrested

A police call led to the arrest of six Chechens in Dijon. Accused of being lax, the police carried out the arrests as part of an investigation into the punitive expeditions of Chechens to the city. 

Six police custody began Thursday, June 18, said in a statement Eric Mathais, public prosecutor in Dijon, adding without geographic details that searches were carried out "in several cities". 

It's getting hot in Dijon, France. Surreal grabuge since Friday between Chechens who came on a punitive expedition and local bands pic.twitter.com/HojmxfrAeM

Checks 

"They are intended to verify the first elements of the investigation", opened in particular for attempted murder in an organized gang, association of criminals and participation in an armed group, according to Eric Mathais.  

From sources close to the investigation, it is specified that the arrests were carried out early Thursday morning by the RAID and the BRI in Dijon, Dole, Troyes, Saint-Etienne and Saverne, near Strasbourg. A police operation also took place in Besançon but it did not lead to any arrests. 

The arrested are people already known to the police, including, according to concordant sources, a man suspected of being behind the call for punitive expedition on social networks. The exact role of the suspects in this case remains to be clarified. 

An investigation had been entrusted to the judicial police and urban security, following the four nights of violence, from Friday to Monday evening in Dijon, occurred around a series of raids by Chechens wanting to avenge the aggression of one of their .  

The investigation "is intended to understand how the various crimes committed may have been provoked or organized, to identify the perpetrators and to take appropriate action," said the prosecutor.  

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Violence and rampage in Dijon  

The reprisal raids had been launched after the assault, on Wednesday June 10 in Dijon, of a teenager from this community. According to participants in the punitive expeditions, the attackers are dealers of North African origin who reside in the sensitive district of Grésilles, in Dijon. 

The raids had brought together up to several hundred people, armed with iron bars and baseball bats, causing excitement in a city not used to this kind of show of force. The Chechens had first, Friday evening, ransacked a hookah bar in the city center where the teenager was allegedly beaten up, before going, Saturday and Sunday evening, to the Grésilles district to look for attackers.  

The accusations of laxity were launched on the part of certain politicians and the inhabitants of Les Grésilles, shocked to note the non-intervention of the police, who did not intervene for lack of sufficient staff according to them. 

Wanting to "defend themselves", they say, the residents of this predominantly Maghreb neighborhood on Monday evening erected barricades with burnt out garbage cans, a show of force that plunged the area into a climate of urban violence to which Dijon is little accustomed.  

Call for calm 

Calm has returned since then, and the Chechen father of the attacked teenager asked for an end to the abuses. 

As part of the investigation into the events on Monday evening, four people were arrested. Three of them were released on Wednesday, according to the prosecution. The fourth, a 32-year-old man with no criminal record, was fined 90 days at 5 euros and a ban on holding or carrying a weapon for five years.  

Public prosecutor Eric Mathais said on Wednesday that investigations were continuing "to identify the participants" in the urban violence that rocked Les Grésilles but also Chenôve, in the southwest suburb of Dijon, where 18 vehicles had been burned Monday evening. 

With AFP

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