A 28-year-old Algerian man was arrested on Thursday, Oct. 2, on a European arrest warrant, for the brutal murder of Iraqi Christian activist Ashur Sarnaya, who was living in France after fleeing from Iraq due to the threats from ISIS.
Sarnaya was murdered while livestreaming on Sept. 10 in Lyon, France, with the Iraqi’s throat being slit while he was filming. Just before his death, he had been discussing his Christianity on a TikTok livestream.
The 28-year-old Algerian suspect is expected to be returned to France within a few weeks, according to Paris Match, which broke the news of the arrest, which took place in Bari, Puglia, in southern Italy.
At the moment, it is unclear what role the Algerian may have played in the murder of Ashur, but he was near the scene of the crime.
🇫🇷 A French woman is allegedly told her outfit is "haram," which means "forbidden" in Islam.
The girl, wearing a cross necklace, responds: "It’s a good thing I’m a Christian."
The incident happened at Music Festival 2025 in Paris, which saw widespread violence and 371 arrests.… pic.twitter.com/f8s2H25WiG
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 23, 2025Originally from Iraqi Kurdistan, Ashur was confined to a wheelchair and was murdered in front of the entrance to his building.
He had been dealing with years of death threats from Islamic extremists, including after he moved to France.
Emergency services discovered Sarnaya in cardiorespiratory arrest and were unable to keep him alive.
“According to his shocked neighbors, Ashur Sarnaya had been living with his sister for at least 10 years in the building in front of which he was killed,” wrote Paris Match.
Sarnaya and his sister fled Iraq in 2014 after the Islamic State group threatened Sarnaya over his Christianity. He and his sister ended up in Lyon, France.
“On his online accounts, the victim spoke Arabic and posted videos often devoted to the Christian religion. In one of these videos, he claimed that his content was regularly blocked and his accounts suspended due to, according to him, reports from Muslim internet users,” the paper further wrote.
The Œuvre d’Orient, a Catholic association that helps Christians in the Middle East, issued a statement condemning “in the strongest terms the murder of an Iraqi Christian in a vulnerable situation” and hoped for “the conclusions of the investigation as quickly as possible.”
The murder has had far-reaching repercussions in France, with Christians increasingly fearful of expressing their beliefs.
French TikTok influencer “Margow_en_Christ,” with 225,000 followers, specifically cited the recent murder of Sarnaya as a reason why she would stop talking about her own Christianity. Margow said she has received constant death threats for her content.
🇫🇷✝️ After Iraqi Christian murdered in France, a French TikTok influencer says she is being forced to stop her Christian content out of fear for her family.
"Margow_en_Christ," with 225,000 followers, specifically cites the recent murder of Ashur Sarnaya, a Christian killed with… pic.twitter.com/HMQ1XAV4GF
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 22, 2025Even if a motive has not yet been established in the murder of Sarnaya, Christians still fear the case was tied to Sarnaya’s open Christianity and statements opposed to Islam.
The attack has already been labeled a hate crime by authorities, with such hate crimes against Christians commonplace in France. The Centre de Réflexion sur la Sécurité Intérieure (CRSI) reported that the first half of 2025 saw a 13 percent increase in anti-Christian acts compared to the same period in 2024.
The president of the Assyrian-Chaldean Association of Lyon also released a statement, saying Sarnaya was a “very kind, discreet, deeply religious person who liked to talk about the Christian faith.” Sarnaya’s distant cousin had this to say about his relative’s death in a Facebook post: “He spent his last moments doing exactly what he loved: spreading the gospel. (…) In my opinion, he is a martyr, and his faith will always be an inspiration.”
As for “Margow_en_Christ,” she said: “I am a Christian and I always will be…but I’ve been making videos about Christianity for five years, and in five years, I’ve received a lot of unpleasant messages, including death threats.”
“I think you saw the person with a disability who was killed in Lyon because he claimed his faith live on TikTok”, she says, referring to Sarnaya. “I can’t afford to put my family in danger.”
France has the largest Muslim population in the EU. The country has faced a massive problem with radical Islam, with security services and the government constantly working on policy and law enforcement methods to fight these threats, including the serious threat of terrorism in France.
