PARIS: A 23-year-old Belgian woman was charged in France Friday for allegedly being part of an attempted March 28 bomb attack on a Bank of America branch in Paris that officials said might be tied to a pro-Iran group.
That attack — thwarted when police stopped and arrested four people about to set off an explosive device outside the US bank building — occurred a month after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran sparked the ongoing war in the Middle East.
France’s anti-terrorist prosecution office (PNAT) said at the time the incident could be linked to a little-known Islamist group with possible links to Iran, Harakat Ashab Al-Yamin Al-Islamiya (HAYI), though no firm link had been established.
The woman, handed over by Belgian authorities responding to a European arrest warrant, is one of six people charged over the foiled attack, with five of them being held in detention pending further legal proceedings, PNAT told AFP on Friday.
She was charged with associating with “terrorist criminals” aiming to set off explosives or incendiary devices likely to cause deaths, as well as possessing and transporting explosive substances “in relation with a terrorist operation,” PNAT said.
