Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Accused France churchgoer assailant’s family seeks answers
SFAX, Tunisia — A third suspect was in French custody Saturday after an Islamic extremist knife attack that killed three people in a Nice church, as the distraught family of the suspected Tunisian assailant asked to see video footage of what happened.
Investigators in France, Tunisia and Italy are trying to determine the motive of chief suspect Ibrahim Issaoui, and whether he acted alone and whether he premeditated Thursday’s attack on the Notre Dame Basilica.
Authorities have labeled the attack, which took place amid growing tensions around cartoons published by a French newspaper mocking the Prophet Muhammad, an act of Islamist terrorism.
Issaoui, who transited through Italy last month en route to France, is in critical condition in a French hospital after being wounded by police as they arrested him.
A 35-year-old man who had met with Issaoui in Nice was arrested
overnight, a judicial official said Saturday. A 47-year-old man who had met with Issaoui the night before
the attack was already in custody, bringing the number of detained suspects to three. Their connection to the attack remains unclear.
A previously unknown Tunisian extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack, and Tunisian and French authorities are investigating whether the claim is legitimate.
In Issaoui’s hometown of Sfax, his family expressed shock and appealed for peace. But they also expressed bewilderment that this young man who drank alcohol and showed no outward signs of radicalism would flee to France and attack a church.
“We want the truth about how my son carried out this terrorist attack. I want to see what the surveillance cameras showed. I will not give up my son’s rights outside the country. I want my son, dead or alive,” his mother Gamra said, her words often interrupted by tears.
His father and brother Wissem said that if Issaoui indeed carried out the attack, he should face justice.
“We are Muslims, we are against terrorism, we are poor. Show me that my brother committed the attack and judge him as a terrorist,” Wissem said. “If he was the attacker, he will take his responsibility.”