PARIS (Reuters) – The perpetrator of the shooting that killed three people on Friday in Paris near a Kurdish cultural center has returned to police custody and will be brought before an investigating judge on Monday, the prosecutor’s office said on Sunday. Paris.
The suspect was released from the psychiatric infirmary and was taken back into custody, the Paris prosecutor’s office told Reuters, adding that he will be presented to an investigating judge on Monday during the day.
The alleged perpetrator of the attack was transferred on Saturday to the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters, the doctor who examined him considering that his state of health was not compatible with police custody.
In addition, the racist motive of the author of the shooting seems to be confirmed by the first results of the investigation communicated on Sunday, which however does not establish any link between the suspect and an extremist organization.
According to the public prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, the 69-year-old man would have admitted during his hearings to have developed a “hatred of foreigners that has become completely pathological” after being the victim of a burglary at his home in 2016.
Describing himself as depressive and suicidal during this hearing, he said he “always wanted to murder migrants, foreigners, since this burglary”, according to the statement released by the prosecution.
The author of the shooting opened fire successively on a woman and two men present in front of the Kurdish cultural center located at 16 rue d’Enghien, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. Two died instantly, the prosecution said.
The third victim died after taking refuge in a Kurdish restaurant across the street. The perpetrator of the attack continued on his way to a hairdresser-barber where he wounded three men by bullets, adds the prosecution, specifying that the three were now out of danger.
The shooter, of French nationality, was subdued and disarmed by one of the victims in the hairdressing salon before being arrested by the police in possession of a handgun and ammunition.
Five of the six victims are of Turkish nationality, the sixth is of French nationality.
“NO LINK WITH AN EXTREMIST IDEOLOGY”
Before the attack on rue d’Enghien, the man said during his hearing that he first went early in the morning to Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), armed with his weapon to commit murders on strangers. He would have given up because of the few people present at that hour.
During a search of his parents’ home, where he lived, the examination of a computer and a telephone revealed no link with an extremist ideology, specifies the prosecutor.
Officials of the Kurdish community had considered Friday that it was a terrorist attack.
Reuters was unable to immediately contact the suspect’s legal representatives on Sunday.
This former retired train driver was known to the courts, after being sentenced in 2017 to six months in prison suspended for possession of a prohibited weapon, and last June to one year in prison for acts of violence with a weapon. committed in 2016.
He had also been indicted since December 13, 2021 for counts of “premeditated and racist violence with a weapon” after stabbing two Sudanese refugees in a migrant camp in Paris. Placed in pre-trial detention in this case, he was released under judicial supervision on December 12.
A demonstration of support for the victims at the call of Kurdish organizations took place on Saturday in the capital. It gave rise to clashes leading to 11 arrests.
(With contributions from Gus Trompiz, written by Jean-Michel Bélot and Kate Entringer)