France says two Paris bombers travelled through Greece
Statement comes after EU’s top anti-terrorism official rejects claims that ISIL members infiltrate Europe as refugees.
Two of the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up at a football stadium in Paris last week had passed through Greece posing as refugees, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins has said.
In a statement on Friday, Molins said the suicide bomber who detonated his explosive vest at Gate H of Stade de France had his fingerprints taken in Greece – a key entry point for refugees – on October 3, at the same time as the bomber who blew himself up at the stadium’s Gate D.
The prosecutors did not name either man or the specific place in Greece in the statement.
‘Tactical move’
The announcement came shortly after the European Union’s top anti-terrorism official rejected claims that the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group were entering the EU hidden among refugees.
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“If there are one or two cases [of infiltration] – and these still have to be verified – then it’s probably a tactical move by Daesh to sow doubt, and make us doubt whether we should help the refugees,” Giles de Kerchove, the EU counterterrorism coordinator, told French broadcaster RFI/France 24, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.
He urged people not to “fall into this kind of trap of associating immigration and terrorism”.