They wanted to “sacrifice” their five-year-old son in the Sahara, according to the Spanish Guardia Civil: Extradition proceedings are underway in Algeciras against a few Girondin music teachers who are suspected of “sectarian excesses” following their arrest at the end of December.
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Patrick Meiffren, mayor of Carcans, was stunned on December 21 when he learned of the arrest of the two parents who were “well integrated into the village” and who had founded “a beautiful music school” there that “up to more than 250.” students”. .
“On December 21, the sub-prefect called me and informed me that the couple had been arrested in the south of Spain, in Algeciras, as they were preparing to take a ferry to Morocco, with the destination, as he told me “To sacrifice their son, whom they considered possessed, in the Sahara,” says the councilor of this small tourist village northwest of Bordeaux.
The Guardia Civil also expressed the desire to “sacrifice” the child in its press release on Saturday, in which it announced the arrest of the two parents, against whom there was a European arrest warrant.
According to a source familiar with the investigation, they left Carcans on December 16 in an SUV they had recently purchased after subletting their apartment. They spent a night in the hotel before staying with a friend in the Hérault.
“Deluded comments”
The investigation began on December 19 after a “call from an applicant who was concerned about the five-year-old son of a couple of friends,” the Bordeaux prosecutor's office said.
The father, born in 1984, “made delusional remarks,” adds the prosecutor's office, which on December 20 opened a judicial inquiry “on the charge of apprehension, kidnapping, seizure or arbitrary detention of a minor hostage aged 15 years for aiding and abetting a crime or misdemeanor” was initiated by the couple.
“The aim was to intercept them in a very short time to protect and rescue the child,” Cédric Roger, squadron leader and gendarmerie commander of the Lesparre-Médoc research brigade, told AFP. Responsible for the investigation at the Bordeaux Research Department.
“Did this family belong to a sectarian movement? At this point it is still too early to say. Are we on the verge of sectarian tendencies? Probably,” he added.
A source close to the investigation confirms that the mother, who was born in 1993, was “under the influence.”
The mayor of Carcans recalls that “during the Ciaran storm” that autumn, the father was found “naked in the woods with very incoherent comments” and then “automatically taken to a psychiatric hospital”.
However, he emphasizes that the couple “displayed the behavior of real parents, loving, very attentive, very supportive and there was nothing to indicate that they could behave like that towards their child”, which was not trained.
Vincent Ronslin, a bicycle rental agent, states that “many children, even adults, came to their school for guitar, piano and drum lessons,” whose facade is now decorated with a “For Rent” sign.
The couple had also posted videos online to learn the ukulele during the lockdown in 2020.
Darker profile
On the shores of Lake Carcans/Hourtin, however, rare residents who hang out on the streets with shuttered storefronts anonymously paint a darker profile of the couple.
One store owner speaks of parents who “pulled their children out of music school because, shall we say, he made mean comments to the students.” “Professors they worked with subsequently resigned,” she adds.
The couple had legal disputes with their previous owner for leaving their previous accommodation in an “unhygienic” condition, she explains.
According to a neighbor at the school, the father, who “rarely said hello,” had “bet on a laser game activity that had very little success” last summer.
The couple remain in custody in Algeciras and their son in a center for minors near the Andalusian city, the Guardia Civil told AFP.
“The extradition process is underway” and the child’s return to France “is also being finalized,” the indictment says.
“We still have to carry out a lot of investigations and are waiting for the little boy and the parents to obtain their statements, if possible,” explains Commander Cédric Roger.