Investigation into Nice suspect delayed after positive Covid test

THE Tunisian accused of knifing three people to death in a church in Nice, southern France, last week has tested positive for Covid-19, which could further delay him being questioned, judicial sources have said.

The news came as four more people were detained for questioning in connection with the attack. Brahim al-aouissaoui, 21, remains in hospital after being shot 14 times by police following the knife rampage at Nice’s Notre-dame basilica on Thursday.

He is reportedly no longer in a critical condition but police have not been able to question him so far and may now face a further delay after the coronavirus diagnosis.

Shouting “Allahu akbar”, Al-aouissaoui is said to have beheaded a woman and killed two other people in France’s second deadly knife attack in two weeks with a suspected Islamist motive.

Known to Tunisian police for violence and drug offences, he arrived in France only last month, having first crossed the Mediterranean to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Four more people were detained for questioning yesterday, say judicial sources. Six people were previously detained over suspected links with the assailant, but only one remained in custody yesterday – a 29-year-old Tunisian who was aboard the boat that brought Aouissaoui to Lampedusa, sources said.

The arrests came a day after France’s 12 million schoolchildren paid tribute to Samuel Paty, a teacher who was decapitated in Paris last month after showing his pupils cartoons of Mohammed as part of a class on freedom of expression.

The murder shocked the country and prompted a new clampdown on political Islam but also fresh calls from extremist groups to target France.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, last weekend attempted to defuse anger in the Muslim world over France’s perceived anti-muslim policies, telling Al Jazeera that his role as guarantor of French secularism and freedom of expression had been “distorted”.

Shouting ‘Allahu akbar’, he is said to have beheaded a woman and killed two other people