Man kills mother, sister but no apparent terror tie
A MAN with severe psychiatric problems killed his mother and sister and seriously injured another woman in a knife attack yesterday in a town near Paris.
French police shot and killed the man soon afterwards.
The Islamic State group, which has a history of opportunistic claims, swiftly claimed responsibility for the attack.
But French authorities were not treating the morning knife attack in Trappes, west of Paris, as a terrorism case, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said after visiting the scene.
He noted the attacker suffered from serious mental health issues although he had also been flagged for glorifying terrorism.
However, officials were not ruling out a terrorism link in the early stage of the investigation. The prosecutor’s office in Versailles, handling the case, said in a statement yesterday evening that the motive for the killings “remains uncertain”.
Interior Ministry spokesman Frederic de Lanouvelle said until the investigation advances, it won’t be clear “100 per cent” whether the attack at the family home was strictly a family drama or was linked to terrorism.
Collomb said the man killed his mother at her home and stabbed the other women outside. Still wielding the knife, he then ignored police warnings and was shot and killed, the minister said.
He described the man as “unstable, rather than someone who was engaged, someone who could respond, for example, to orders and instructions from a terrorist organisation, in particular from Daesh (Islamic State)”.