France launches terror probe after two killed in stabbing spree
05 April, 2020
A Sudanese refugee continued a knife rampage in a town in southeastern France on Saturday, killing two people in what is being treated as a terrorist attack.
The attack in broad daylight, which President Emmanuel Macron called "an odious act", occurred with the united states on lockdown in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
Counter-terrorism prosecutors have launched a study into "murder associated with a terrorist enterprise" following the rampage in a string of shops in Romans-sur-Isere, a riverside town with a population around 35,000.
The assailant, identified only as Abdallah A.-O., a refugee in his 30s from Sudan who lives in the town, was arrested without a fight by police.
"He was entirely on his knees on the pavement praying in Arabic," the prosecutor's office said.
According to witnesses cited by local radio station France Bleu Drome Ardeche, he shouted "Allah Akbar!"(God is Greatest) as he stabbed his victims.
"Anyone who had the misfortune to end up in his way were attacked," town mayor Marie-Helene Thoraval told AFP.
David Olivier Reverdy, from the National Police Alliance union, said the assailant had called on police to kill him if they came to arrest him.
'Jumped over the counter'
The suspect first went right into a tobacco shop where he attacked the dog owner and his wife, Thoraval said.
He then went right into a butcher's shop where he seized another knife before going to the city centre and attacking persons in the pub outside a bakery.
"He took a knife, jumped non-prescription, and stabbed a customer, then ran away," the butcher's shop owner Ludovic Breyton told AFP.
"My wife tried to greatly help the victim however in vain."
Interior Minister Cristophe Castaner, who visited the scene, said two persons were killed and five others injured.
"This morning, a guy embarked on a terrorist journey," he said.
The initial investigation has "taken to light a determined, murderous course more likely to seriously disturb public order through intimidation or terror", in line with the national anti-terrorist prosecutor's office (PNAT).
It said that during a search of the suspect's home, "handwritten documents with religious connotations were found in which the author complains specifically that he lives in a country of non-believers".
The suspect, who obtained refugee status in 2017, had not been recognized to police or intelligence services in France or Europe, PNAT said.
Macron denounced the attack in a statement on Twitter.
"All of the light will be shed on this odious act which casts a shadow over our country which has recently been hit hard in recent weeks," he said.
France is in its third week of a national lockdown over COVID-19, with all but essential businesses ordered to shut and persons told to stay at home.
The united states has been on terror alert since a wave of deadly jihadist bombings and shootings in Paris in 2015.
In all, 258 people have already been killed in France in what have been deemed terrorist attacks.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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