The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Police hold parents, friend of Paris knife attack suspect
PARIS — Investigators working to understand why a 20-yearold French citizen born in the Russian republic of Chechnya went on a stabbing rampage in central Paris detained the dead suspect’s parents and a friend Sunday, French officials said.
Counterterrorism investigators want to know if the assailant, identified by Chechnya’s leader as Khamzat Azimov, had help or co-conspirators. The attacker killed a 29-yearold man and wounded four other people with a knife before police fatally shot him Saturday night.
The suspect was on a police watchlist for radicalism, a judicial official not authorized to speak publicly about the case told The Associated Press. But he had a clean criminal record and did not know his victims, Interior Ministry spokesman Frederic de Lanouvelle said.
The parents were detained in Paris’ northern 18th district and the friend was detained in the eastern French city of Strasbourg on Sunday afternoon, the judicial official said. French media reported Sun
that Azimov had lived in Strasbourg, which is306 miles from Paris. It was unclear if he was residing with his parents in the French capital when he carried out the attack.
Witnesses reported hearing the man shouting “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great,” during the attack that happened at about 9 p.m. in a lively area near the Opera Garnier.
The Islamic State group claimed the attacker was one of its “soldiers” three hours later, but provided no evidence to back the claim or details about his identity.
The assailant was listed in a nationwide database of thou- sands of people suspected of links to radicalism, according to the judicial official. Extremists behind multiple attacks in France in recent years have turned out to be on the watchlist.
The official said the suspect was born in November 1997 in the largely Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya, where extremism has long simmered.
Chechnya’s president insisted Sunday that France bears responsibility for the knifings, pointing out that Azimov only held a Russian passport until he was 14 years old.
“I consider it necessary to state that all responsibility for the fact that Khazmat Azimov went on the road of crime lies completely with the authorities of France,”
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said. “He was only born in Chechnya, and his growing up, the formation of his personality, his views and persuasions occurred in French society.”
The attacker targeted five people and then fled, according to Paris police and a witness. When police officers arrived minutes later, he threatened them and was shot dead, police union official Yvan Assioma said. Several witnesses said the attacker ran directly toward police.
Bar patrons and opera-goers described surprise and confusion, and being ordered to stay inside while the police operation was underway on rue Monsigny in the lively 2nd arrondissement, or district, of the French capital.