French police released neo-Nazi leader More Fredriksen from custody last night on grounds that they had no evidence to link him to a series of machine-gun attacks on Jewish institutions in Paris over the weekend. Fredriksen and five other suspects were arrested last Friday night when police raided the offices of the outlawed Federation of European Nationalist Action (FANE) but all have been freed for lock of evidence.
On Friday morning, unidentified gunmen sprayed bullets into the Great Synagogue, a memorial monument to Jews deported by the Nazis, a Jewish-run children’s home and the Lucien Hirsh School. The pre-down attacks caused no casualties. Early yesterday, another synagogue was riddled with bullets. Anonymous telephone callers told the French news media that the attacks were the work of the European Nationalist Fasces (FNE), a neo-Nazi group set up by Fredriksen after FANE was banned.
The attacks were generally believed to have been in defoliation for beatings administered to Fredriksen’s supporters by Jewish activists in a series of clashes outside a Paris courthouse Sept. 18. The neo-Nazi leader was convicted on that date for inciting race hatred. He will be sentenced next month.
But police sources said today that Fredriksen and the other five suspects had managed to prove that they had no connection with the weekend’s attacks on Jewish premises. According to the police, the attacks could have been carried out by another neo-Nazi group.
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