Current:Home > ScamsThe fatal stabbing of a German tourist by a suspected radical puts sharp focus on the Paris Olympics -Secure Growth Academy
The fatal stabbing of a German tourist by a suspected radical puts sharp focus on the Paris Olympics
View
Date:2025-04-18 01:00:12
PARIS (AP) — A bloodstain by a bridge over the Seine river was the only remaining sign on Sunday of a fatal knife attack 12 hours earlier on a German tourist, allegedly carried out by a young man under watch for suspected Islamic radicalization.
The random attack near the Eiffel Tower has drawn special concern for the French capital less than a year before it hosts the Olympic Games, with the opening ceremony due to take place along the river in an unprecedented scenic start in the heart of Paris.
After killing the tourist, the suspect crossed the bridge to the city’s Right Bank and wounded two people with a hammer, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Saturday night. The suspect, who apparently cried “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), was arrested.
Video circulating on the internet showed police officers, weapons drawn, cornering a man dressed in black, his face covered and what appeared to be a knife in his right hand. They twice tasered the suspect before arresting him, Darmanin said.
Questioned by police, the suspect expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and claimed that France was an accomplice, Darmanin said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on X, formerly Twitter, that the news from Paris was “shocking.”
“My thoughts are with the friends and family of the young German man,” she wrote. “Almost his entire life was before him. ... Hate and terror have no place in Europe.”
The French interior minister said the suspect was born in 1997 in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, outside Paris. He had been convicted and jailed for four years, until 2020, for planning violence, was under psychiatric treatment, tracked for suspected Islamic radicalization and was on a special list for feared radicals.
The French media widely reported that the man, who lived with his parents in the Essonne region, outside Paris, was of Iranian origin.
The case was turned over to the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office.
“This person was ready to kill others,” Darmanin told reporters, who along with other government members and President Emmanuel Macron praised police officers for their response.
Well-known emergency doctor Patrick Pelloux, who was among the first at the scene, told BFM-TV there was blood everywhere. Pelloux said he was told by the victim’s entourage that the suspect stopped them to ask for a cigarette, then plunged his knife into the victim. “He aimed at the head, then the back. He knew where to strike,” Pelloux said.
The daily Le Parisien, in an in-depth report published Sunday, said the suspect had a history of contacts via social networks with two men notorious for the gruesome killing of a priest during Mass in 2016 in Saint-Etienne du Rouvray and the man who killed a police couple at their home in Yvelines, west of Paris, a month earlier.
France has been under a heightened terror alert since the fatal stabbing in October of a teacher in the northern city of Arras by a former student originally from the Ingushetia region in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains and suspected of Islamic radicalization. That came three years after another teacher was killed outside Paris, beheaded by a radicalized Chechen later killed by police.
The attack brought into sharp focus authorities’ concern for potential terrorist violence during the 2024 Games.
Just days earlier, the Paris police chief had unveiled detailed plans for the Olympic Games’ security in Paris, with zones where traffic will be restricted and people will be searched. The police chief, Laurent Nunez, said one of their concerns is that vehicles could be used as battering rams to plow through Olympic crowds.
veryGood! (1)
Related
- The Best Stocking Stuffers Under $25
- Community Solar Is About to Get a Surge in Federal Funding. So What Is Community Solar?
- Josh Hartnett and Wife Tamsin Egerton Step Out for First Red Carpet Date Night in Over a Year
- As Enforcement Falls Short, Many Worry That Companies Are Flouting New Mexico’s Landmark Gas Flaring Rules
- Woman dies after Singapore family of 3 gets into accident in Taiwan
- After Cutting Off Water to a Neighboring Community, Scottsdale Proposes a Solution
- How artificial intelligence is helping ALS patients preserve their voices
- U.K. leader Rishi Sunak's Conservatives suffer more election losses
- 'Most Whopper
- Outrage over man who desecrated Quran prompts protesters to set Swedish Embassy in Iraq on fire
Ranking
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Triathlon
- Video shows bear stuck inside car in Lake Tahoe
- Six Environmental Justice Policy Fights to Watch in 2023
- ‘Advanced’ Recycling of Plastic Using High Heat and Chemicals Is Costly and Environmentally Problematic, A New Government Study Finds
- Which apps offer encrypted messaging? How to switch and what to know after feds’ warning
- After Cutting Off Water to a Neighboring Community, Scottsdale Proposes a Solution
- Get a $65 Deal on $212 Worth of Sunscreen: EltaMD, Tula, Supergoop, La Roche-Posay, and More
- Treat Williams’ Daughter Pens Gut-Wrenching Tribute to Everwood Actor One Month After His Death
Recommendation
Tree trimmer dead after getting caught in wood chipper at Florida town hall
Legislative Proposal in Colorado Aims to Tackle Urban Sprawl, a Housing Shortage and Climate Change All at Once
Listening to the Endangered Sounds of the Amazon Rainforest
In California’s Central Valley, the Plan to Build More Solar Faces a Familiar Constraint: The Need for More Power Lines
A South Texas lawmaker’s 15
Tennis Star Naomi Osaka Shares First Photo of Baby Girl Shai
Remembering Cory Monteith 10 Years After His Untimely Death
Tearful Damar Hamlin Honors Buffalo Bills Trainers Who Saved His Life at ESPYS 2023