Marseille suspect detained, released day before stabbings
Knifeman had used 7 different identities
A man who fatally stabbed two women outside the main train station in the southern French city of Marseille was detained for shoplifting and released the day before the attack, authorities said Monday.
French prosecutors said the knifeman, who was shot dead by soldiers immediately after Sunday’s attack, also used seven different identities in previous arrests, AFP reported.
Authorities said he had used a Tunisian passport under the name Ahmed H., 29, but investigators were working to determine the attacker’s identity, AFP reported.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Detectives are studying the suspect’s cellphone to determine whether he had direct links to the terror group and if he had accomplices.
The victims were cousins ages between 17 and 21, the Associated Press reported. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had any link to the attacker.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said video footage obtained by police showed the man attacking a woman and running away, before coming back and attacking a second woman. Collomb said some witnesses reported hearing the assailant shout “Allahu akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great.”
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters the suspect had a history of petty crime but was not on a terrorist watch list, AFP reported.
The Aamaq news agency — linked to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS — said the attacker was responding to the group’s calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition fighting extremists in Syria and Iraq. France has been part of the anti-ISIS coali- tion since 2014.
The suspect was identified by his fingerprints, which matched those taken during previous arrests, the AP reported.
He did not appear to have French residency papers and was detained Friday for suspected shoplifting at a department store in the Lyon region, in the eastern part of the country. He was held overnight and released on Saturday, said police union official Yves Lefebvre.
Lefebvre said shoplifting usually results in a quick police report and a court summons for a later date, and the suspect is released.
“Nothing allowed us to suspect there was a threat of radicalization during the (Lyon) arrest,” he told the AP.
Marseille’s St. Charles train station reopened Monday. Last month, four American college students were attacked with acid at the same station. French authorities said the woman who doused the four Boston College students was suffering from mental illness.