The author of the fatal knife attack on Saturday near the Eiffel Tower “fully accepts and takes responsibility for his actions” during his police custody, which was still in progress on Monday.
The author of the knife attack which left one dead and two injured on Saturday near the Eiffel Tower “fully accepts and claims responsibility for his actions” And “everything suggests that he acted alone”a source close to the investigation told AFP on Monday.
While in police custody, he said he acted in “reaction to the persecution of Muslims around the world”. It appears “very cold and clinical and disembodied”added this source.
Facts
The attack happened on the banks of the Seine around 9:30 p.m. between the Quai de Grenelle and Bir Hakeim, in the wealthy 15th and 16th arrondissements. Just a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower and other places popular with tourists, particularly lively on weekends.
The assailant, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, aged 26, first attacked a group of three people of Filipino origin on the Quai de Grenelle, according to the facts reported by anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard during a a press conference on Sunday evening.
The attacker dealt two hammer blows and four stab wounds to one of the three people, a man with dual Filipino and German nationality, who died.
The other two people were not physically injured, the prosecutor stressed.
A taxi driver, seeing the scene, shouted at the attacker who then fled, crossing to the other side of the bridge after throwing “God is great”underlined Jean-François Ricard.
Police officers quickly dispatched to the scene pursued him. In front of them, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab shouted again “God is great”making it appear that he was wearing an explosive belt.
He then hit two passers-by again in the head with a hammer. They are a 60-year-old Frenchman and a 66-year-old British man, injured in the eye, according to the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office (Pnat).
The assailant was then arrested near a square after receiving two shots with an electric pulse gun.
He has since been in police custody in the anti-terrorist section (SAT) of the criminal brigade of the Paris judicial police.
Three members of his family or those close to him were also taken into custody, according to the anti-terrorism prosecutor.
The victims
First there is a group of three people of Filipino origin: a 23-year-old man, who also has German nationality, died after being stabbed and hammered. His partner was not attacked “physically” but was “extremely shocked”, according to Mr. Darmanin.
The emergency doctor who took care of the victims told AFP that the deceased man was a nurse, just like his partner.
According to Jean-François Ricard, the two people who accompanied the deceased victim “remain particularly shocked.” “They are still under medical supervision and have not been able to be heard for the moment”said the prosecutor.
For their part, the two men attacked with a hammer “are in good health today” physical, specified Sunday the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau. They had “superficial trauma”but their “psychological trauma will be immense”.
They returned home, Mr. Ricard said.
The portrait of the attacker
Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab is a 26-year-old Franco-Iranian, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) to Iranian refugee parents.
In a naturalization decree published in the Official Journal in 2002, he is presented with the first name “Iman”but in the jihadist sphere he was called “Amine” and asked his parents to do the same.
This man “very unstable profile, very easily influenced”according to a security source at AFP, had already been arrested in 2016 by the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) for a planned violent action in La Défense, a business district to the west of Paris.
At the time a biology student, he had been csentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy to prepare an act of terrorismincluding one year suspended and probation for three years.
Released from prison in 2020, he was monitored for significant psychiatric disorders and was registered in the automated judicial file for perpetrators of terrorist offenses (Fijait).
Taking into account certain incidents, in particular contact via social networks with (…) the future author of the assassination of Samuel Paty, the Pnat had obtained a strengthening of the obligations to which the individual was subject, the prosecutor reported.
After a new psychiatric assessment, he was subject to a care order involving tight psychiatric monitoring and controlled by a coordinating doctor, until the end of April 2023.
At the end of October, his mother reported to the police her concern about the behavior of her son, who “was withdrawing into himself”, recounted the anti-terrorism prosecutor.
Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab comes from a family without any religious commitment. He converted to Islam at the age of 18 in 2015 and very quickly fell into Islamist ideology, according to the account of Jean-François Ricard.
He had established relationships with individuals anchored in jihadist ideology some of whom are already active in the Iraqi zone.
The attacker, on file for Islamist radicalization (FSPRT), published a protest video in Arabic on networks in which he pledges allegiance to the Islamic State group.
This video was posted online on his X account (formerly Twitter), which included “numerous publications on Hamas, Gaza and more generally Palestine”, according to the anti-terrorism prosecutor.
More than 5,000 people radicalized in France
Around 5,200 people are known for radicalization in France, of which 1,600 people are particularly monitored by the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), according to an intelligence source, who specifies that 20% of these 5,000 people have disorders. psychiatric.
France is “long-term under the influence of the radical Islamist threat”, insisted Sunday evening Gérald Darmanin. The Minister of the Interior sent a telegram to the prefects, asking them for a “extreme vigilance” during Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, from Thursday to December 15.
The attack occurred less than two months after that of Arras (Pas-de-Calais). A teacher had been killed and the Vigipirate plan raised to the maximum level “emergency attack”.