French suspect confesses to crime
Yassin Salhi, 35, has also given details about the circumstances surrounding the killing
PARIS: The man suspected of decapitating his boss in an attack on a gas factory in France has confessed to the grisly crime, sources close to the investigation said on Sunday.
Yassin Salhi, 35, “has also given details about the circumstances” surrounding the killing, according to the sources, who said he would be transferred to Paris for further questioning by anti-terrorist police. Salhi’s confession came after it emerged the married father-ofthree sent a gruesome selfie photo of himself and the severed head to a WhatsApp number in Canada.
Investigators have warned however that it could be a relay number and the intended recipient could be anywhere in the world. After several hours of silence, Salhi has begun to open up to investigators about the assault, which came six months after 17 were killed in attacks in Paris that began with the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
On Friday morning, Salhi rammed his van into the USowned Air Products factory near France’s second city of Lyon in what President Francois Hollande said was a “terrorist” attack designed to blow up the whole building. He was overpowered by a firefighter as he was trying to prise open a bottle of acetone in an apparent suicidal bid to destroy the factory. Police then made the gris- ly discovery of the severed head of Salhi’s boss, 54-year-old Herve Cornara, lashed to the gates of the factory near two flags.
War against terrorism
Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated that the world was engaged in a “war against terrorism”. “We cannot lose this war because it’s fundamentally a war of civilisation. It’s our society, our civilisation that we are defending,” Valls told iTELE rolling news channel.
France is facing “a major terrorist threat” which needs to be fought “over the long-term”, warned the prime minister.
It’s not a question of whether there will be another attack, but “when” and “where”, stressed Valls. No group has said it carried out the French operation.
Sources close to the investigation said Salhi was radicalised more than a decade ago after contact with convert Frederic Jean Salvi -- known as “Ali” -- who is suspected of preparing attacks in Indonesia with Al Qaeda militants.
An autopsy on the victim has proved inconclusive, with experts unable to determine whether he was killed before being beheaded or decapitated alive.
The French probe is naturally focusing on Syria, where hundreds of people from France have gone to wage war, officials said.
Anti-terrorist authorities have identified 473 people who have left France to fight in Iraq or Syria and Valls said 1,800 people in France were “linked” in some way to the militant cause.
Nearly six months after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the attack raised painful memories for France, which is still on high alert for potential repeats.
Around 200 people in the town of Saint-Quentin-Fallavier — where the attack took place — staged a minute’s silence in the victim’s honour followed by a rousing and spontaneous rendition of the French national anthem.