Beheading suspect known to security police for 10 years
AN ISLAMIST fanatic thought to be behind yesterday’s beheading horror in France had been known to the security services for nearly 10 years, the French Government admitted.
Yassine Sahli, 30, was put on an intelligence watch list in 2006 because of his connections to terror groups.
But Sahli – said to be Frenchborn of North African origin – was never arrested and officials discontinued his “Fiche S” secret file two years later.
French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve released details of the lapse after Sahli was arrested on suspicion of decapitating his boss and impaling his head on a factory fence.
Witnesses said Arabic writing had been scrawled on the 50- yearold businessman’s head and two flags resembling IS banners were left nearby.
Last night, father- of- three Sahli, his wife and several suspected associates were being questioned about the outrage near Lyons, south- west France.
Police believe the delivery driver arrived at Air Products gas supply plant at Saint- QuentinFallavier, with the employer’s body inside his van. The fanatic is thought to have got out of the vehicle, hoisted the head on a fence, then climbed back inside and ploughed through the gates.
Two of the US- owned factory’s workers were injured in a series of explosions caused when the van drove into gas- filled canisters.
Sahli is said to have been detained by a brave fireman who confronted him as he allegedly screamed “Allahu Akbar ( God is greatest)”.
Shortly after his arrest, his wife had claimed from their home on the outskirts of Lyons that he had simply gone to work as normal. She told a French radio show: “I don’t know what happened, he left to go to work as normal. He went to work at 7am. I expected him this afternoon. I know my husband. We have a normal family life. He goes to work, he comes back. We are normal Muslims. We do Ramadan. We have three children and a normal family life.”
She added: “My heart is going to stop. I do not know what happened. Have they arrested him?”
But later, heavily- armed special forces operatives took her and one of their children – protective sheets draped over their heads – from their flat.
Mr Cazeneuve said: “People who could have participated in this abject crime are in custody.”
Security was stepped up in the region and soldiers and the elite GIGN anti- terror police were sent to the site.
Yesterday’s atrocity came five months after 17 people were killed in jihadist shootings in Paris, which began with the Charlie Hebdo magazine massacre.
French President Francois Hollande said of yesterday’s incident: “No doubt about the intention – to cause an explosion. The attack was of a terrorist nature since a body was discovered, decapitated and with inscriptions.”
Prime Minister Manuel Valls added: “Islamist terrorism has hit France again.”