Vaucluse: warehouse became mosque without permission – Le Figaro

A Sorgues, two Muslim associations were sentenced Wednesday by the Criminal Court of Avignon for creating, without permission, a new church in a warehouse of a commercial area.

for thirty years, Muslims Sorgues, in Vaucluse, practiced their religion degraded into two smaller apartments. This is why two Muslim organizations decided to create a new place of worship more suitable. Without permission …

“Cultural Renaissance sorguaise” and “Serenity” as well as their respective presidents, Brahim Bouharrada and Jamel Mouloua, were sentenced Wednesday by the Criminal Court of Avignon for turning without authorization warehouse of the commercial area into a mosque. They Fined € 100 per square meter of built area and will restore the site to state within two months under a penalty of 75 euros per day of delay. At the hearing, their lawyer, Louis-Alain Lemaire, pleaded acquittal, saying that “the fraudulent and criminal intent, malice and dishonesty of (his) clients” were not characterized.

This warehouse surrounded by 2600 m2 of land was bought in August 2014 to a private company for the sum of 350,000 euros. According to the mayor, is the signing of the sales agreement that the municipality discovered for associations to make a mosque. “They sent me a letter after some time in which they requested the change as quickly as the local development plan (PLU), says Thierry Lagneau. I told them it was impossible for the town to modify it to a secluded plot. “

In November, the planning department and the police write a report certifying the start of work without permission of the municipality. prayer halls and classrooms dedicated to Koranic school had been built in the hangar and adjoining two-story building. The town of Sorgues is doing so civil party.

According to the lawyer associations, the mayor had verbally promised the modification of PLU and would be back on his word “under the pressure of the National Front,” a few months before the departmental elections of March 2015. What Lagneau Thierry denies. Defendants have up to ten days to appeal.