Berlin: Georgi Filipov told a French judge he had no idea what he was doing when he used spray paint and a stencil to imprint dozens of red hands along the Wall of the Righteous in Paris.

Filipov, a Bulgarian visitor to France, claimed he’d been tricked into defacing the memorial to thousands of people who saved Jews from the holocaust during World War II. He denied being motivated by hate, despite his Nazi tattoos, and was sorry he’d been a hooligan.

Georgi Filipov appears at a court in Sofia in 2024. Credit: AFP

“I’ve made bad choices in the past,” he told the court last month.

The judge agreed. Filipov, 36, was sentenced to two years in jail. And at that moment, he became the latest example of a minor criminal doing the dirty work for a major operation that spreads division in

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