Two people arrested in southern France on suspicion of financing Islamist extremism were notified they face forgery charges, court sources said Saturday. The two were among eight people detained Wednesday in the port city of Marseille as part of a Franco-Italian anti-terrorism operation. "Two men (who appeared before magistrates in Marseille) were notified of possible prosecution for forgery and criminal association and placed under judicial supervision," the source said.Of the six others detained Wednesday, one is subject to an Italian arrest warrant and the other six were released on Friday and Saturday. No link between the criminal activity of counterfeiting and the financing of terrorism of radical Islamist origin had been established.
Anti-terrorism police, acting on instructions from Paris, arrested five people Wednesday in Marseille and the surrounding area. Three other people turned up at police stations and were arrested.
In Italy anti-terrorist police detained seven people in Naples and nearby Caserta in the south of the country, and Milan and Bologna in the north. The suspects -- all men of Algerian origin -- were suspected of links to the Islamic fundamentalist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). French and Italian anti-terrorism investigators suspect them of financing Islamic extremists -- particularly the GSPC -- via a range of criminal activities, including supplying forged documents to illegal immigrants, the sources said. The initiative for the swoops came from the Italian authorities who identified "people from Marseille" and alerted their French colleagues.