2023-06-10 14:26:00
After the knife attack in France, the search for a motive continues. According to the prosecutor, there are still no indications of a terrorist background. The victims of the attack are all out of danger.
After the knife attack in France that injured six, the suspect was taken into custody for attempted murder. The 31-year-old man was silent about a possible motive both in police custody and before the examining magistrate, said prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis in Annecy.
There is still no evidence of a terrorist background. All victims are out of danger, it said. The immediate witnesses, the parents, are in severe shock and are also victims, according to the prosecutor.
Mental problems?
According to Bonnet-Mathis, the man underwent a psychiatric examination. There was no evidence of delusions. However, there are still some indications of the man’s psychological problems, who behaved restlessly in custody and rolled on the floor. Apparently he refused in the morning to go to the investigating judge. As could be seen on television pictures, officers had to carry him to the police car in a hospital chair.
However, the psychiatrists saw the 31-year-old as capable of undergoing an interview and being held in custody. A medical examination found no evidence of alcohol or drugs.
Unknown to the European security agencies
In the Alpine town of Annecy, the man is said to have injured several people with a knife, some of them life-threateningly, on a playground on Thursday. Four small children were among the injured. The police arrested the suspect shortly after the crime.
As the prosecutor said, according to witness statements, the man spoke of his wife and daughter and of Jesus Christ during the crime. The Syrian wore a cross, and two Christian pictures, cash and a driver’s license were also found on him. He also had a folding knife with him.
Shortly after the attack, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne declared that the arrested Syrian was unknown to the European security authorities. There is also no evidence of psychiatric treatment in the past.
Asylum application rejected in France
While the 31-year-old is silent, the investigators are now concentrating their investigations on his life and his living conditions. The prosecutor said the man fled Syria in 2013 to Sweden, where he received asylum and later married. He has a three-year-old daughter and last year he separated from his wife.
In May 2022 he traveled to Italy and Switzerland and came to France in the autumn, where he applied for asylum. This was rejected because Sweden had already recognized it. This application had been rejected four days before the crime. Whether this could have something to do with the fact is open.
In Annecy he lived as a homeless person in doorways. The police had checked the man on Sunday because he had washed himself in Lake Annecy, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said, as reported by the newspaper “Le Parisien”. However, there was no reason to arrest him.
1686419813
#Annecy #attacker #custody