AJACCIO, 28 November 2004 — Unknown assailants shot at and almost killed an imam overnight on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica then fled after daubing racist graffiti on a building where he was staying, a prosecutor said yesterday.
Prosecutor Jose Thorel said a group of men drove up to a house, which serves as a Muslim cultural center and prayer hall in the southern Corsican town of Sartene at 2:30 a.m. They shouted racist insults, which brought the cleric to the door, although he did not open it.
The assailants then fired several shots at the door and the bullets would have hit the imam if had not had the good sense to flatten himself against the wall, Thorel said. The group then left after daubing a swastika and the slogan “Arabi Fora” (Arabs Out in the Corsican language) on the walls of the building.
“I was asleep when I heard someone banging very loudly on the door. I went toward the door; they were shouting ‘Arabs out’. It was the voice of someone young,” the still visibly shocked cleric, Mohamed El-Atrache, said.
“They fired! I flattened myself against the wall and I heard them leave quickly afterward,” the 53-year-old Moroccan said.
Ten bullet holes were visible on the door, all at head and chest height.
In the corridor leading to a prayer room, a glass door was broken in two places and one of the nine-millimeter bullets was stuck in the kitchen wall, about 10 meters away.
Corsica, which is home to a strong nationalist movement, has recently seen an upsurge in attacks on North African immigrants.
Emotions were running high among around a dozen people who often attend “The Sartene Muslim Cultural Association” and who came yesterday out of solidarity.
“The problem here is that there is no enemy in front of you to try to explain things to... Our children were born here, we’re integrated and don’t have any trouble with the people here,” said one, who refused to be named. Atrache said it was the first time he had been threatened. “I’ve lived here for 12 years, it’s the first time something like that has happened. I’m scared now,” he said.
“But I don’t think they came here intending to kill me. It’s a bit like in Bastia or Ajaccio (the island’s two main cities) or elsewhere ... young people with nothing better to do,” he said.
