A 27-year-old Algerian citizen, suspected of killing Ashur Sarnaya, an Assyrian Christian ‘Titoker’ from Iraq while he was broadcasting live, was recently charged with “murder in connection with a terrorist organisation” and “criminal terrorist association”, according to the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT).

The 45-year-old ‘influencer’ died from his injuries. He had been very active on social media and regularly posted videos about his Christian faith.

Arrested in Italy, charged in France

The suspected murderer, S.B., was arrested on 2 October in Andria, southern Italy, where he had fled with friends after an European arrest warrant was issued. The suspect was transferred to France on the evening of 27 October, and charged on 28 October.

According to the investigators, his mobile phone was logged in the crime scene area between 9:15 p.m. and 10:50 p.m., and several witnesses reported seeing a suspicious man ‘loitering’ in the same area at that time, who ran away shortly after the crime.

The analysis of the mobile phone also revealed that on the day of the murder, the suspect had been watching the Iraqi Christian's livestream for around thirty minutes.

The day after the crime, the suspect switched off his mobile phone and left Lyon on a long-distance bus to Milan, then travelled to Rome where he remained until september 24th, before heading south.

“This is a political act”

For David Andic, lawyer for the Sarnaya family and the Council of Assyrian-Chaldean Coordination in France (CCACF), “the facts speak for themselves: it was while he was preaching that Ashur was struck. This act, more than a crime, is a message, a political act”.

“It was not only Ashur who was targeted, but everything he stood for: the Christianity of the East, which has been persecuted for centuries. The massacres, which were believed to be limited to the minorities of a tormented Middle East, are now reappearing in shocking silence on French soil”, he told the French news agency AFP.

“We must no longer turn a blind eye to the increase in anti-Christian acts”, stressed CCACF president, Georges Yaramis.

Anti-Christian incidents on rise in France

Statistics recenly reveal that in the first five months of 2025 alone, 322 anti-Christian acts were recorded, an increase of 13% over the same period last year, news website Zenit reports.

86 French senators issued a public appeal, calling on the government to “take decisive measures to safeguard Christians”, who “too often feel abandoned”, they said.

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