Picture of attacker at Orly airport emerges
Frenchman was on watchlist and had radical leanings
PARIS // A man who had been investigated for links to radical Islam was shot dead at Orly airport south of Paris yesterday after attacking a soldier on patrol and trying to grab her rifle.
French officials confirmed his identity as Ziyed Ben Belgacem after he was named by French media. He was 39, French and had several previous convictions for armed robbery and drug offences, among others.
Before the airport incident yesterday, he had allegedly already shot at police and stolen a car in the suburbs of Paris. The Paris prosecutors’ office said his home was one of scores searched in 2015 in the aftermath of the suicide bomb and gun attacks which killed 130 people in Paris. He was suspected of having radical leanings but no incriminating evidence was found. French interior minister Bruno Le Roux confirmed Belgacem was “known to the police and the intelligence services”. Police were questioning his father and brother yesterday, and also searched Belgacem’s house in Garges-les-Gonesse, a suburb in the ethnically mixed area of Seine- Saint- Denis in north-eastern Paris.
Belgacem was pulled over by police in Garges- les- Gonesse at about 6.55am yesterday for speeding.
He drew a gun and fired shots at the officers, slightly injuring one in the head, before fleeing.
He then continued south before stealing another car in the suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine, which is about 10 kilometres from Orly airport.
In Vitry, he also “burst in to a bar and threatened those present”, Mr Le Roux said. At about 8.30am, he walked on to the departures floor of Orly- Sud terminal, where he tried to grab a rifle from a female officer who was on patrol with two others.
A senior military source said that he knocked the soldier to the ground then tried to take her weapon from her.
The two other soldiers then opened fire, killing him. No one else was injured in the incident. Identity documents found on the attacker matched those presented by the man who fired at police in Garges-les-Gonesse and the stolen car was found at Orly.
Anti-terrorist prosecutors have taken over the investigation, indicating the authorities view terrorism as a possible motive.
France is still under a state of emergency after a series of terrorist attacks, including the November 2015 massacre in Paris in which 130 people were killed, and the lorry attack in which the driver ploughed into the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice last July, killing 86.
Extremists have repeatedly targeted the security forces. In mid-February, a machete-wielding Egyptian attacked soldiers on patrol outside the Louvre museum in Paris, slightly injuring one of them, before he was shot and wounded.
In June 2016, a man claiming allegiance to ISIL stabbed a police couple to death at their home near Paris.
Soldiers have also been the targets in several knife attacks.
All flights in and out of Orly airport were suspended yesterday morning, with many inbound flights diverted to the larger Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris. About 3,000 passengers were removed from Orly- Sud terminal, the scene of the attack, while elite police teams secured it and swept it for explosives.
Those at the nearby Orly-Ouest terminal were confined to the building.
By early afternoon Orly-Ouest had reopened and flights resumed.
Orly-Sud reopened for incoming flights but outgoing flights were still suspended. French president Francois Hollande said investigators would determine whether Belgacem “had a terrorist plot behind him”.
The president ruled out any link between the attack and the forthcoming presidential election next month and May, but said it proved the need for military patrols at public sites and for France to remain “extremely vigilant”.