Drugs are the enemy, not IS

WITHIN hours of the latest street murder in Paris, it emerged that the culprit, Karim Cheurfi, was (once again) a sordid career criminal with a very violent past, a hatred of the police, a long record of car theft, robbery, and, yes, drug offences.

Did he sample his own produce, as most drug-dealers do? Did it affect him? It looks like it. He showed many signs of being unhinged. French media said those who knew him described someone who walked and acted ‘as if he came from Mars’.

They also reported that he showed no signs of ‘radicalisation’ in prison, but hated the police. He wasn’t known as an Islamist. A neighbour remarked: ‘If you said “Daesh” to him [the Arabic name for Islamic State] I’m sure he wouldn’t know what it was.’ A regular worshipper at the local mosque said he had never seen him there. And another called him a ‘man who was absolutely not religious’.

I ask again, are we failing to prevent these events, because we are looking in the wrong place for the cause of them?