Deadly Paris knife attack being treated as terrorism

PARIS — A deadly knife rampage in a Paris suburb Friday is being treated as a suspected act of terrorism, prosecutors said Saturday.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the probe into the incident in Villejuif, in which one person was killed and two injured by a young man who was then shot dead by police.

The attacker suffered from serious mental health problems but investigators had also established that he had adopted extremist views, France’s prosecution bureau for terrorist offences said.

The man, born in 1997, had planned his attack, which started in a park in the early afternoon, in an organized way, prosecutors added.

Local prosecutor Laure Beccuau earlier said at a news conference that, according to emergency calls to police, the man repeatedly shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is most great” — during his rampage.

The attacker left his first intended victim alone when the latter told him he was Muslim and recited a prayer in Arabic at his request.

He then attacked a woman who was jogging with her husband, dealing the latter a fatal blow when he tried to protect her. The woman was also injured in the neck but has since left hospital.

A third victim, a young woman jogging near the park, suffered minor injuries. Several others escaped.

When police caught up with the attacker, he refused orders to drop his weapon and “maintained a threatening behavior,” so they opened fire, wounding him fatally.

A copy of the Koran, as well as some texts “that could be described as Salafist” — a puritanical school of Islam — were found in his bag, lead detective Philippe Bugeaud said.

The attacker had been identified as a gifted child but also someone with psychiatric problems from the age of 5, Ms. Beccuau said.

He had apparently converted to Islam in 2017.

He had last been treated for his psychiatric problems in May 2019 and had stopped taking his medication in June. He also suffered from drug addiction problems.

More than 230 people were killed in terrorist attacks in France in 2015 and 2016, most of them claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.

Another 17 people have been killed in six other attacks by lone assailants since April 2017, also mostly claimed by Islamic State. In some cases, a pledge of allegiance by the perpetrator appears to be the basis for such claims.