(Grenoble) The Syrian refugee who stabbed two adults and four children last Thursday in the French Alps has been transferred from a prison to a psychiatric hospital in the Lyon suburbs, we learned on Wednesday from sources familiar with the matter.
He was transferred to the specially equipped hospital unit of Vinatier, in Bron near Lyon (center-east), two sources familiar with the matter told AFP on Wednesday evening.
Abdalmasih H. had been placed in an emergency protection cell in the Aiton penal center (Savoie), equipped to prevent suicides, after having sown terror on Thursday morning in a park on the shores of Lake Annecy, in stabbing six people, including four very young children.
Mutic since his arrest, he has been indicted for “attempted murder” and placed in detention, without the investigation having yet made it possible to understand the motivations for his action.
After fleeing his country at war, Abdalmasih H. had obtained a permanent residence permit in Sweden at the end of 2013, where he had obtained asylum, which gave him refugee status.
At the time of the tragedy, he was “neither under the influence of narcotics nor under the influence of alcohol”, according to Annecy prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis. “No terrorist motivation appears at this stage”.
Witnesses only heard him mention his wife and daughter and utter the name of Jesus Christ during the attack.
The vital prognosis of the six injured is no longer engaged, the prosecutor said on Saturday.