Montreal man accused in airport stabbing

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale Wednesday condemned as “heinous and cowardly” an attack on an American police officer at an airport in Flint, Mich., in which a Quebec man was arrested.

The attack just before 10 a.m. at Bishop International Airport prompted an evacuation and extra security elsewhere in the Michigan city about 80 kilometres northwest of Detroit.

Federal officials said a man shouted in Arabic before stabbing the officer in the neck, and referenced people being killed overseas during the attack, which is being treated as an act of terrorism.

Amor Ftouhi, 49, of Montreal, was immediately taken into custody. A criminal complaint charging him with committing violence at an airport says Ftouhi asked an officer who subdued him why the officer didn’t kill him.

Although the attack was being investigated as an act of terrorism, authorities had no indication the suspect was involved in a “wider plot,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge David Gelios.

“At this time we view him as a lone-wolf attacker,” Gelios said Wednesday afternoon. “We have no information to suggest any training.”

Gelios said Ftouhi legally entered the U.S. at Champlain, N.Y., on June 16 and made his way to the Flint airport on Wednesday morning.

Ftouhi spent some time in public, unsecured areas of the airport before going to a restroom where he dropped two bags before attacking the officer with a 30.5-cm knife that had a 20-cm serrated blade, Gelios said.

The criminal complaint alleges Ftouhi stabbed Lt. Jeff Neville after yelling “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great.” According to the FBI, Ftouhi said something similar to “you have killed people in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and we are all going to die.”

The Montreal man did not go through any security screening, the FBI agent said. He described Ftouhi as “co-operative” and talking to investigators.

Witnesses described seeing the suspect being led away as Neville was bleeding, a knife on the ground.

“The cop was on his hands and knees bleeding from his neck,” Ken Brown told The Flint Journal. “I said they need to get him a towel.”

The officer was in satisfactory condition after initially being in critical condition, airport police Chief Chris Miller said at a late afternoon news conference where the charges were announced.

The CBC reported that following the attack, police in Montreal descended on an apartment in the city’s St-Michel neighbourhood connected to suspect. Police said three people were questioned.

Goodale said there had been “complete co-operation” between Canadian and U.S. authorities investigating the stabbing and the suspect. U.S. Attorney-General Jeff Sessions said the attack on the officer will be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”