Bayonne mosque shooting | |
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Location | Bayonne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France |
Coordinates | 43°30′13″N 1°26′32″W / 43.50362°N 1.44214°W |
Date | 28 October 2019 |
Target | Muslims |
Attack type | Shooting, failed arson |
Weapon | Handgun |
Deaths | 1 (the suspect) |
Injured | 2 |
Perpetrator | Claude Sinké |
Motive | Islamophobia |
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Islamophobia |
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The Bayonne mosque shooting was an attack carried out on 28 October 2019.[1] An 84-year-old man attacked a mosque in the southwestern French town of Bayonne. He seriously injured two people by gunfire.[1] The police arrested the suspect.[1] He is said to have taken part in the 2015 regional elections as a candidate for the far-right Front National (today the Rassemblement National).[1]
According to the French police, the man is said to have tried to lay a kind of incendiary in front of the mosque at around 15:20 local time.[2][1] He was disturbed by two men and then fired several shots at them.[1] The two men were seriously injured. He then set fire to a car and fled.[3][1] Police found a gas canister and a handgun in the car of the suspect.
Police later arrested the 84-year-old suspect, who was locally known as Claude Sinké at his home in Saint-Martin-de-Seignanx. He is also accused of trying to burn down the mosque.[4]
Sinké died in prison on 26 February 2020, aged 84.[5]