PARIS – A man known as a radicalized Islamist attacked unsuspecting walkers with a knife and a hammer on Saturday evening near the Quai de Grenelle in Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower. He stabbed one person to death and injured two others.
According to Le Parisien, the fatal victim is a tourist of dual German and Philippine nationality. He succumbed to a stab wound in the back and shoulder. He was in Paris with his girlfriend. She was not attacked, “but is extremely shocked,” according to French media. A taxi driver who saw the events unfold was able to save the woman. The injured person is an English tourist, reports Le Parisien. He suffered a wound to the eye when he was hit with a hammer. A second injured person, a 60-year-old Frenchman, is said to be in shock.
‘Radical Islamist’
Police were able to quickly arrest the suspected perpetrator, who allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is great) during his attack on the passerby. According to authorities, the suspect was born in France in 1997 and is a French national.
The attacker – 26-year-old Armand R.-M. – according to the French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, was born in France in 1997 of Iranian parents and has French nationality. The man is said to have stated after the attack that he could not tolerate the murder of Muslims in both Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and that he believes France is “complicit in what Israel” is doing there.
At the same time as the facts, a claiming video was posted on social media by the attacker. In that video, the man talks about “current events, the government, and the murder of innocent Muslims,” according to a security source. It is still unclear when that video was made. Earlier, a police source told the AFP news agency that the perpetrator is known as a radical Islamist and a psychiatric patient.
La Défense
The man was sentenced to five years in prison in 2016 because he had plans to commit an attack in the Parisian office district of La Défense. He was therefore also on a terror list of the French security services. “He served his sentence (the man was released after four years, ed.) , and was monitored because he had serious psychiatric problems,” said Darmanin. “He was treated psychiatrically and neurologically.”
The source in the security services describes the man as “very unstable, very impressionable.” “Was he medically monitored as he should have been, and as was the case for some time? That is a question that will be asked,” he said. The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for murder, attempted murder in the context of terrorism, and criminal terrorist conspiracy.
