A Frenchman detained last month in Ukraine had planned a series of terror attacks in France during the Euro 2016 football tournament, Ukraine’s SBU security agency has said.
The man, described by French media as 25-year-old Gregoire M, was arrested on the Ukraine-Poland border and found with a large cache of arms, including guns, detonators, a large quantity of explosives.
SBU said it had been monitoring the man for six months, during which time he was seen acquiring five AK-47 automatic weapons, two anti-tank grenade launchers, 5,000 rounds of ammunition, 100 detonators, and 125kg of TNT.
SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak said the man intended to blow up “a Muslim mosque, a Jewish synagogue, tax collection organisations, police patrol units and numerous other locations.”
French TV network M6 said the man was a co-operative farm worker from the Lorraine area of eastern France, and had no previous criminal record.
Euro 2016 is due to begin in France on Friday, amid a heightened security presence following the recent Islamic State-linked attacks in Paris and Belgium and a continued threat of Islamic terrorism.
