By: Lucy Alcindor
Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard in Paris, France, said that the suspect in an attack on police lived according to a so-called ‘radical vision of Islam.’
According to authorities, the suspect had been in contact with conservative Islamic Salafists. He had also worked for the Paris police starting in 2003.
The staff member at Paris police headquarters allegedly murdered four co-workers with a knife last Thursday.
“The assailant, a 45-year-old civilian computer expert who converted to Islam about 10 years ago, was in contact with members of the Salafist Islamist movement, Ricard told reporters.
“Police Chief Didier Lallement said on Friday that the attacker, like everyone in the intelligence division, had received a high level of security screening,” reported the news site dw.com. “He had worked for the Paris police force since 2003 did not have a history of psychiatric problems.”
According to Ricard, exams “attest to a scene of extreme violence” in an attack that lasted seven minutes, adding that the two knives used in the attack had been purchased by the killer, the web site added. The man “agreed with certain atrocities committed in the name of [Islam]” and defended the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, Ricard said. The suspect, who was shot dead in a confrontation with police, exchanged 33 text messages with his wife ahead of the attacks, all of which were of a religious character, Ricard said. The suspect’s wife is in police custody until Monday.”
The shooter, an IT worker at the headquarters, “went on a rampage on Thursday, killing three police officers and an administrative worker,” according to The Sun. “The attacker first stabbed two police officers. A third police officer was killed in another office and an administrative worker died on the stairs. He also wounded at least one other before being shot dead by a policeman responsible for security at the building, who fired several shots with a Heckler & Koch G-36 assault rifle, including to his head, killing him.”
“The disturbing statements he made after a dozen people were killed in the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris were reported to higher-ranking officers, a police union official said Saturday, but nothing was done,” reported the New York Times. “The fact that this and other potential clues — including a video the killer posted on Facebook that imitated throat-cutting — were missed by the police administration that surrounded him, at the heart of an organization dedicated to fighting terrorism, has shocked the ranks of the national police.”
