Van hits people at Marseille bus stops
One person was killed and another seriously injured in the southern French city of Marseille yesterday after a van ploughed into people at two bus stops, police sources said, adding that the suspected driver had been arrested. Marseille’s prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux said that investigators had “no element pointing to a terrorist attack” and that the driver was suffering from psychiatric problems.
“He was found with a letter from a psychiatric clinic and we are leaning towards treating it as a mental health case,” Tarabeux told AFP. The incident comes with Europe on high terror alert following last week’s car ramming attacks in northeastern Spain. The vehicle in Marseille first drove at speed towards a bus stop in the city’s northern 13th district at around 9:00 am (0700 GMT), hitting a woman who was rushed to hospital with serious pelvis injuries.
The driver of the stolen van then continued to the eastern 11th district, where he slammed into another bus stop, causing one fatality. Several European cities, including London, Berlin and Stockholm, have been targeted in a wave of attacks by Islamist radicals using vehicles to run down people. Many have been claimed by the Islamic State group. Terrorism experts have warned that the intense media coverage of the violence could spur copycat attacks by people with mental health problems and a propensity for violence. Julien Ravier, mayor of the 11th district, told the BFMTV news channel that the victim in the Marseille incident was a woman in her 40s who was waiting alone for a bus.
Several attacks thwarted
Police sources said the driver, who is in his mid-30s, was a petty criminal with a history of stealing cars. The vehicle was traced to the city’s Old Port district, where the driver was arrested. Dozens of police sealed off the area while searching the vehicle for possible explosives.
The bloodiest vehicle attack in Europe took place in July 2016 in the French city of Nice, when a radicalized Tunisian drove a truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86 people. France has avoided a major incident in the past year but has suffered a slew of small-scale strikes, mainly targeting the security forces. On August 9, a 36-year-old Algerian ran down soldiers on antiterrorism patrol west of Paris, injuring six.
Three days earlier, a knife-wielding 18year-old on leave from a psychiatric hospital was arrested at the Eiffel Tower after bursting past security shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Greatest”). Police initially treated that case as a criminal affair but it was later upgraded to an anti-terror investigation after he said during questioning that he had wanted to kill a soldier.