‘Radical’ killed in shootout
Man was on the run after knife attack on French police
LA CHAPELLE-SUR-ERDRE (France): A “known radical” suspected of carrying out a knife attack in France died from injuries sustained in a shootout with police, hours after badly wounding a female officer in another act of violence against police.
The man, who was on a terrorist watch-list according to the interior ministry, had been on the run after the attack in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre near the western city of Nantes.
A total of 250 officers were trying to find him, and two gendarmes were wounded in the exchange of fire that resulted in his arrest, authorities said on Friday.
No motive for the stabbing has emerged, but the attacker was “a known radical and suffering from a very serious psychiatric illness”, one source involved in the investigation said.
After stabbing the officer at a police station, inflicting lifethreatening injuries, the suspect stole her service weapon and fled on foot.
He then broke into the flat of a young woman, holding her there, and it was from there he fired on the gendarmes, prosecutor Pierre Sennes said.
The police officer he had stabbed was taken to hospital and later declared to be out of danger.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the attempted murder of the police officer and the gendarmes, and for the sequestration of the young woman.
“My first thoughts go to the police officer who was seriously wounded,” Prime Minister Jean Castex wrote on Twitter.
“She has all my support and ... the support of the entire government.”
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited the scene on Friday.
“This French-born French national, around 40 years old and known to police services, was released from prison in 2016,” he said, adding that he showed signs of radicalism.
That had led to his inclusion on a watch-list of potential terrorist sympathisers, he added.
Arrested in 2013 for aggravated theft, on his release he was ordered to follow treatment for schizophrenia.
Darmanin said the suspect had opened fire on the officers who shot back. He had died shortly after the shootout.
An AFP photo reporter at the scene said he heard around a dozen rounds discharged in two rapid bursts during the standoff in a residential area.
Special police forces carrying shields and wearing helmets used rubbish bins and bushes for cover as they opened fire.
One witness said he saw a civilian on the ground surrounded by police after the shootout.
Pupils in the area’s primary and middle schools were kept indoors while police tracked the suspect, a city official said.
“We drew the curtains and told the children to lie on the ground.
“They’ve been there for two hours,” one local teacher said by text message during the manhunt.
The suspect’s former lawyer, Vincent de la Morandiere, said that his client’s psychological state had “deteriorated gradually during his various spells in prison”.