Orly evacuated as gun-grabber killed
ORLY — Soldiers at Paris’ busy Orly airport shot and killed a man who wrestled one of their colleagues to the ground and tried to steal her rifle on Saturday, officials said.
No one else was hurt, but thousands of travellers were evacuated and at least 15 flights were diverted to the city’s other airport, Charles de Gaulle.
Police did not immediately provide a motive for the attack.
The man who was shot dead was the same individual who had shot at security services earlier in the morning in northern Paris and was a radicalised Muslim known to authorities, a police source said.
“A police road check took place in Stains (northern Paris) this morning at 0700. It turned bad and the individual shot at the officers before fleeing,” one police source said.
“This same man — a radicalised Muslim known to intelligence services and the justice system — then took a Famas (assault weapon) from a soldier at Orly’s southern terminal ... before being shot dead by a soldier.”
paris — Security forces shot dead a man who tried to seize a soldier’s gun at Paris Orly airport on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of the busy airport and putting security back in the spotlight in the middle of France’s presidential election campaign.
The 39-year-old man was already on the radar of police and intelligence services, had earlier shot and wounded a police officer with an air gun after a routine traffic stop north of Paris, officials said.
With the country in the throes of a highly-charged election campaign after two years of attacks on civilians and public targets by Daesh militants — several of them in Paris — the anti-terrorism prosecutor opened an investigation.
A police source identified the man only as Zied B. and said he was known to the police for theft and drug offences.
An army spokesman said he was shot dead after a struggle with a female soldier on patrol in the airport terminal after he had earlier shot and wounded a police officer with an air pistol during a police check on the opposite side of Paris.
The man’s father and brother were taken into police custody, a judicial source said. BFM TV, without giving a source, said the attacker had texted his father saying: “I’ve screwed up. I’ve shot a policeman.”
President Francois Hollande said the case had been turned over to anti-terrorism prosecutors and a number of operations were under way. The incident had shown the need for the “Sentinelle” security operation brought in after an outbreak of attacks by militants in 2015, he said.
More than 230 people have died in France in the past two years at the hands of attackers allied to the militant group Daesh, whose strongholds in Syria and Iraq are being bombed by an international coalition including France.
These include coordinated bombings and shootings in November 2015 in Paris when 130 people were killed and scores injured. Strengthening France’s security is at the heart of the campaign for presidential elections in April and May, where centrist Em- manuel Macron is predicted to hold off a strong challenge from far-right-winger Marine Le Pen, who advocates tough measures against illegal immigrants and militants.
Saturday’s train of events began at Stains, near Le Bourget airport in northern Paris, where the man fled in a car after he shot and wounded a police officer at a road check. Soon afterwards, he was involved in a carjacking in another Paris suburb Vitry where he threatened customers of a bar, Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux told reporters.
Soon afterwards, he tried to seize a Famas rifle from a woman air force member who was patrolling the airport. The man and the soldier fell to the ground after an “extremely violent attack”, an army spokesman said. —