Racist Murder in Var: Chilling Videos of Christophe B. Before He Acted

On Saturday, March 31, in Puget-sur-Argens ( Var ), Hichem Miraoui, a 45-year-old Tunisian, was shot five times as he was returning home. His neighbor, Christophe B., 53, was quickly arrested. After four days in police custody and the transfer of the investigation from the Draguignan prosecutor's office to the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat), the latter opened a judicial investigation on Thursday. At the end of the day this Thursday, Christophe B. was charged with terrorist murder and attempted murder, motivated by the victim's origin , according to the Pnat.

While he admits to the crime but denies it was racist, Christophe B. had nevertheless posted five videos on his Facebook account, a few hours before and after the incident. In one of them, the man declared, visibly drunk: “You’ll see, tonight we’re going to be a hit. Tonight, I’m going to die. For me, there’s no allegiance to Al-Qaeda. For me, it’s allegiance to the blue, white, and red.” The tone is set.

In another, recorded after the murder, Christophe B. seems to lose his grip: “I’m going to stop sullying my soul. I don’t know what I just did. Every day, people call you a racist. There you go, I lost it with some shitty neighbors, with all the scum, with all the filth.”

A crime fueled by hate

The victim's relatives confided that Hichem had been feeling threatened for several weeks. Regular insults, graffiti on his scooter, and repeated verbal attacks: "Every time there was a whiff of food, he would insult him in the hallway," said a neighbor. Hichem had even confided in his relatives that he intended to move out , as the atmosphere had become so unbearable.

On the day of the tragedy, he was on the phone with his sister. She heard the shots live. “He was happy. All he wanted was to see his mother as soon as possible. The line was cut. The phone fell off and there was no news until the next day,” she explained on the TF1 news.

In addition to Hichem Miraoui, the shooter targeted another apartment and injured a man of Turkish origin in the hand. Nineteen bullet holes were recorded. The attack clearly targeted people perceived by Christophe B. as “foreigners.”

“He recognizes the materiality of the facts”

While the suspect admits to the facts, he continues to deny any racist or terrorist motive. His lawyer, Reda Ghilaci, insists on the lack of a structured organization and considers the charges "legally questionable."

The anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (Pnat), which has taken charge of the case, notes, on the contrary, a desire to sow terror. According to it, Christophe B. "wanted to disturb public order through terror," through an act inspired by racial hatred and far-right conspiracy theories that he regularly shared online. A psychiatric assessment did not detect any mental illness.