PARIS — A French court on Friday sentenced four Bulgarians to between two and four years in prison for desecrating a Jewish memorial with red handprints last year, in what prosecutors think may have been foreign interference linked to Russia.

The Paris Criminal Court handed down two-year sentences to Georgi Filipov and Kiril Milushev, described as the perpetrators, and four and three years respectively to Nikolay Ivanov and Mircho Angelov, considered the operation’s “masterminds.” Angelov is still at large.

All four were also banned from entering French territory for life.

The trial was the first of its kind in France, one of a series of similar cases suspected of having been orchestrated by a foreign power with the aim to destabilise.

The four defendants were not tried for acting on behalf of a foreign power: that aggravating circumstance was only added to France’s criminal code after the incident took place.

However, in their judgement, the judges said foreign interference was “indisputable” and aimed to “stir up public opinion, exploit existing divisions and further fragment French society.”

The vandalism was staged during heightened tensions in........

© The Times of Israel