2023-12-05 22:34:50
According to a source close to the case, his police custody was still in progress on Tuesday evening and he will be presented to an anti-terrorism judge on Wednesday, presumably at the end of the day, with a view to being indicted in a judicial investigation which will be opened by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat).
Armand Rajabpour-Moyandoab was arrested after the attack which caused the death of a 23-year-old German-Filipino tourist and injured two other people, Saturday evening not far from the Eiffel Tower, a few months before the Summer Olympics in the capital (July 26-August 11).
The assailant said he chose this place on purpose, according to the source close to the investigation: the monument is a “symbolic place” and “he could not stand it being lit in the colors of Israel” , after the massacres committed by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7.
The government is under pressure after this attack which occurred after that in mid-October in Arras (Pas-de-Calais), which cost the life of a teacher and led to the Vigipirate plan being raised to the maximum “emergency attack” level.
On the far right but also on the right, voices were raised to demand an extension of “safety detention” to those convicted of terrorist acts, such as the jihadist of Bir-Hakeim, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS). ).
Tuesday evening, another person was still in custody: a woman already known to the intelligence services, arrested in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine (Seine-Saint-Denis). The assailant “saw her the day before” his act, according to a source close to the investigation.
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Investigators are working to determine his possible role in the attack and a decision will be made on Wednesday regarding his presentation to the anti-terrorism judge, according to the source close to the case.
Police custody was, however, lifted on Monday for the attacker’s two parents, “very attached to France”, according to the source close to the investigation.
Since Saturday, the attacker’s medical monitoring has raised questions and criticism.
“There was clearly a psychiatric failure, the doctors considered on several occasions that he was better,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin ruled on Monday.
Anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard indicated on Sunday evening that the attacker, listed for Islamist radicalization, was “subject to a treatment order involving tight psychiatric monitoring and controlled by a coordinating doctor” until the end of the investigation. the test on April 26, 2023, after a new psychiatric assessment.
“Until the end, we tried to strengthen, to expand so that the support is as tight as possible. There are things on which we do not act, on the other hand, it is ideological disengagement which requires a minimum of support from the person”, commented the Pnat on Tuesday, requested by AFP.
“There is no cessation of monitoring, when judicial monitoring stops, but rather continuity thanks to the transfer to the administrative authority,” the public prosecutor further clarified.
Attack near the Eiffel Tower: the attacker’s custody continues, a woman also interests investigators
“Protect the French”
“There is someone mentally ill, who no longer takes medication to treat his delusions and who undoubtedly acts out. We must think about all of this to protect the French,” insisted the Minister of the Interior .
According to a source within the intelligence services, around 20% of the 5,200 people known for radicalization in France suffer from psychiatric disorders.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the suspect’s mother had indicated to the police in October that she was worried about her son, seeing that he was “withdrawing into himself”, the anti-terrorism prosecutor reported on Sunday.
The police then tried to have him examined by a doctor and hospitalized, something ultimately impossible in the absence of problems, according to a source close to the case.
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“Coming from a family without any religious commitment”, according to a source close to the investigation, he converted to Islam at 18 and “very quickly” fell into “jihadist ideology”.
He was sentenced to five years in prison for terrorist conspiracy, after a planned violent action in La Défense, the business district west of Paris, in 2016. He was released from prison in March 2020.
Did he still have links within the Islamist sphere? Investigators are limited in their investigations by the fact that they have not found this man’s phone, according to the source close to the investigation.
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