The border between the aggression of a man with severe psychiatric problems and an action tinged with terrorists was very thin in the case of the attack in Villejuif on the outskirts of Paris, where a man armed with a knife killed the Friday to one person and injuring two others before being gunned down by the police. Finally, however, the prosecutor's office anti-terrorism has decided to take up the case, after considering that the evidence gathered in the last 24 hours about the attacker, a man of 22 years with a long psychiatric history, “justify”, which the researchers assume the possible drift of terrorism.

“although we have seen the psychiatric problems important to the author of the acts, the research of the last few hours allow you to set a radicalization clear of the alleged perpetrator, as well as a organized preparation of their passage to action”, explained the office of the prosecutor national anti-terrorism in a statement on Saturday night.

Shortly before, the attorney for the town of Créteil, who had initially assumed the case, Laurence Beccuau, explained in a press conference that the attacker, identified as Nathan C., a man born in 1997 and residing in Paris, was in psychiatric treatment from the age of five and was hospitalized on numerous occasions for this reason; the last time, in may of last year. A month later, he explained, interrupted the medical treatment that was prescribed. Although it is known that he converted to islam in 2017, it is ignored for the time when and how they are radicalized. I was not on the radar of the specialist services and only had a history for use of narcotic drugs as a minor and assault during a demonstration, in a case that ended up shelved. However, the statements of the witnesses and the evidence found both at the site of the attack as recorded in the register of their domicile, have tilted the balance towards a possible terrorist act, pending to be confirmed, as no organization has claimed responsibility also the attack.

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According to the prosecutor, when he entered the park, just before 14.00 on Friday, and headed for a potential first victim, he walked up to her brandishing a knife and shouting “allahu akbar”. Only stopped his attack when the victim told him that I was a muslim, at which point Nathan C. he is ordered to pray a muslim prayer. When he did, the assailant walked away and lunged at a couple nearby, who became their first victims: the husband, a neighbor, Villejuif, age 56, is interposed when the abuser tried to attack his wife and received a stab with “extreme violence” in the chest that would cost him the life. His wife was wounded in the neck. Nathan C. then continued in what authorities have described as a “wandering murderous” and “extremely determined” and out of the park to a shopping centre, when attacked in the back by a young man who was jogging, hiriéndola “slightly” on the back of multiple stab wounds.

The assailant did not stop even when a patrol car of police stopped him, so the officers decided to shoot and break you. Before he died, Nathan C. made a gesture that led him to believe police officers who could carry a belt explosive under the djellaba she wore, made by the which was called the brigade of explosives, while finally it turned out to be a false alarm. However, added the deputy director of the crime squad of the judicial police, Philippe Bugeaud, near his body was found a bag of his property the contents of which cast further suspicions of a possible radicalization: “A Qur'an, different works about the muslim religion and some which could be described as salafis, as well as a letter-testament repeats features of the muslim is autoflagela and that you know that you can make the big jump,” he said.

The latest evidence was found in his apartment, that he had “all the signs that I was not going to be busy more”, which would point to a possible premeditation of the attack.

the prosecution's counter-terrorism assume the case does not mean that it will eventually be considered a terrorist act. In fact, in the case of the attack on the prefecture of police of Paris, the 3 of October last, the entity is also in charge of the investigation, but until now has been able to determine officially the motives of the aggressor, the police officer Mickael Harpon, also allegedly radicalized and that he killed four of his colleagues before being killed.

Date Of Update: 04 January 2020, 23:00