RAMBOUILLET – A Tunisian man who stabbed to death a police employee outside Paris watched jihadist propaganda videos just before the attack, said France’s anti-terror prosecutor yesterday, adding that a fifth person was detained for questioning.
Based on an analysis of the killer’s cell and social media postings, “his radicalisation appears little in doubt”, said Jean-Francois Ricard at a press conference.
The 36-year-old attacker, identified as Jamel Gorchene, stabbed a woman who worked at the police station here, a suburb southwest of Paris, on Friday as she was returning from a break.
Racing into the building’s secure entry hall, he grabbed the victim from behind and stabbed her in the stomach and throat while yelling “Allahuakbar” (God is the Greatest), said Ricard.
An officer in the building shot Gorchene after he refused an order to drop the knife, which had a 22cm blade.
Investigators later discovered he had watched videos of songs praising jihadist fighters on his phone moments before the attack.
A Quran and prayer rug were found in his scooter afterwards, said Ricard.
Video surveillance cameras appear to show that Gorchene visited a temporary prayer hall here a few hours before arriving at the station, he added, though the images do not confirm if he entered the building.
Gorchene’s father, who was still being held for questioning yesterday, “revealed that his son had adopted a rigorous practice of Islam”, said Ricard.
“On the other hand, he also said that he had noticed behavioural troubles since the beginning of this year.”
A couple who housed Gorchene after he arrived illegally in France in 2009 were released from custody without charge, said a judicial source.
Two cousins remained in custody yesterday as investigators try to work out what prompted the attack by a man unknown to any of France’s intelligence services and without a criminal record.
“Barbaric act”
France has suffered a wave of Islamist terror attacks that have killed more than 250 people in recent years.
Ricard said the Rambouillet attack was the 17th since 2014.
Gorchene, who obtained a French residency permit last year, had returned last month to Tunisia to visit his family – his first trip to the country since he immigrated.
Ricard said investigators are working with Tunisian authorities, while Tunisia’s embassy in Paris said it “strongly condemns” a “barbaric act” carried out during the holy month of Ramadan.
Posts on Gorchene’s Facebook page indicate that he might have been spurred to action after the jihadist murder of Samuel Paty, a school teacher, last October, said Ricard.
Paty had angered some students’ parents by showing controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad printed by the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, whose offices were also targeted in a deadly jihadist attack in 2015.
After the Paty murder, Gorchene embraced “an ideology that legitimises violence against those who offend the prophet”, said Ricard. – AFP, April 26, 2021
