Officials look for motive behind knife attack

PARIS: Investigators combed an IT staffer’s computer on Friday for clues to his motive for stabbing four colleagues to death at police headquarters in Paris, as his wife said he had been “agitated” before going on the rampage with a kitchen knife.

The 45-year-old computer expert killed three men and a woman — three police officers and an administrative worker — in a frenzied 30-minute atack that ended when he was shot dead.

Two others were injured in the Thursday lunchtime stabbing spree that sent shock waves through an embattled French police force already complaining of low morale.

Officials said there was no indication that the rampage was an act of terror but emphasised that no theory was being ruled out at this stage.

The man, named as Mickael H, was born on the French overseas territory of Martinique in the Caribbean and was a recent convert to Islam. He had worked for the police for over a decade-and-a-half without ever arousing suspicion.

The attacker’s widow told investigators her husband, who had a severe hearing disability, displayed “unusual and agitated behaviour” the night before his crime, a source close to the investigation told reporters.

A search of the couple’s house in a lowincome Paris suburb near Charles de Gaulle airport yielded no evidence that the man, who became a Muslim about 18 months ago, had been motivated by radical religious ideology, the source added.

Computer equipment seized in the search was still being examined. Correspondents saw investigators — faces concealed by balaclavas — lead out from the house late on Thursday a man and a woman who hid behind hoods.

The possibility of a terror motive “has clearly not been ruled out,” government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye told Franceinfo radio on Friday.

“But it is important to emphasise — you are not a terrorist because you are Muslim and converting to Islam is not an automatic sign of radicalisation. The facts need to be looked at carefully,” she said.

One motive investigative sources mooted was a personal conflict at work.

The man was employed as a computer scientist in the intelligence branch at police headquarters, a stone’s throw from the Notre-dame cathedral in the historic heart of Paris.

He had worked for the police since 2003 before commiting the deadliest atack on police in France in years.

Shortly ater the killings, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said anti-terror investigators were not involved in the murder probe.