PARIS — French investigations right into a deadly weekend assault close to the Eiffel Tower had been wanting Monday into the psychological well being of the suspected assailant, who swore allegiance to the Islamic State group earlier than stabbing a German-Filipino vacationer to dying and injuring two different folks with a hammer.
The French nationwide taken into police custody, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, has a historical past of psychological sickness and of Islamic radicalization, officers stated. He faces a attainable preliminary cost of terrorist-related homicide for the Saturday night time assault that raised contemporary questions on safety in Paris earlier than it hosts the Olympic Video games subsequent yr.
“It is a case that hyperlinks radical Islam, undeniably, and psychological sickness. I have to inform the French folks the reality that there are quite a few instances like this,” French Inside Minister Gérald Darmanin stated Monday, including that round one-third of suspected radicals beneath surveillance have psychiatric points.
The stabbing came about inside the future safety perimeter that can blanket each banks of the River Seine when the 2024 Summer time Video games open July 26 with a present and parade for the ten,500 athletes alongside the waterway that cuts via the French capital..
Anticipated to attract a whole bunch of 1000’s of spectators, the scale and scope of the out of doors extravaganza make it a very daunting public security problem in a metropolis that has been repeatedly hit by extremist assaults.
Sports activities Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra insisted Monday that France was able to safeguarding the opening festivities. They would be the Olympics’ first held outdoors of a stadium, that are simpler to safe. There are not any backup plans to maneuver the occasion elsewhere, however the scale of the present and spectator numbers could possibly be tweaked, if mandatory, the minister stated.
“We don’t have a Plan B. There’s a Plan A inside which there are a number of sub-plans,” Oudéa-Castéra stated on France Inter radio.
The suspect in Saturday’s assault beforehand spent greater than 3 1/2 years in jail on a terror conviction. He was on a police record of feared radicals, was being watched by France’s counter-terrorism surveillance company and obtained necessary psychiatric care till April of this yr, officers stated.
Talking to broadcaster BFMTV, the inside minister stated authorities ought to be given higher powers to drive psychiatric remedy on folks in such instances.
“There seems to have been a psychiatric failing as a result of docs on a number of events determined that he was higher, that he was extra regular and will dwell freely,” Darmanin stated.
Just a few weeks earlier than the assault, the suspect’s mom instructed police that her son had stopped taking his remedy, however she was apparently too afraid of him to ask that he be hospitalized, the minister stated.
“She didn’t need to, apparently as a result of she was afraid of her baby, which is comprehensible,” Darmanin stated. “She got here again a number of days later to say that he appeared higher.”
The assailant apparently focused victims at random. After fatally stabbing the 23-year-old vacationer, the attacker crossed a bridge to the town’s Proper Financial institution and assaulted two folks with a hammer. The British nationwide and the French citizen had been handled at a hospital earlier than being launched, authorities stated.
In a video recorded earlier than the assault, Rajabpour-Miyandoab swore allegiance to the Islamic State group and expressed assist for Islamic extremists in Africa, Iraq, Syria, Egypt’s Sinai, Yemen, Iran and Pakistan, based on France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-Francois Ricard.
The video, in Arabic, was printed on Rajabpour-Miyandoa’s account on X, previously Twitter, the place his current posts included references to the Israel-Hamas battle, the prosecutor stated.