(Paris) The French pensioner who admitted to having killed three Kurds on Friday in Paris, had first intended “to murder migrants” in a city north of the capital, with a large population of foreign origin, mu by “a pathological hatred,” said the prosecution on Sunday.
The 69-year-old man saw his police custody lifted on Saturday for health reasons and was hospitalized in the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters.
Since the attack, which left three dead and three injured – the latter were out of danger on Sunday – the track of racist crime is privileged.
PHOTO JULIE SEBADELHA, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Photos of the three victims were deposited in front of the Democratic Center of Kurdistan in Paris.
As soon as he was arrested shortly after the fact, the alleged shooter told the police that he had done so because he was “racist”. In police custody, he recognized a “hatred of foreigners that has become pathological” since a burglary of which he was the victim in 2016, said the Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, in a press release.
He described himself as “depressive” and “suicidal”. “But before committing suicide, I always wanted to murder migrants, foreigners, since this burglary,” he said in police custody.
Early Friday, he went to the town of Saint-Denis with his weapon, “a Colt 45 automatic pistol of 11.43 caliber”.
But, “he finally gives up taking action, given the few people present and because of his dress preventing him from reloading his weapon easily”, indicated the prosecutor.
He then returned to his parents, then came out and went shortly before noon rue d’Enghien, in the center of Paris, where he knew of the existence of a Kurdish cultural center, and opened fire.
Emine Kara, a leader of the Kurdish Women’s Movement in France – and two men, including artist and political refugee Mir Perwer, died under his bullets. Three men were injured, one seriously, but their lives are no longer in danger and one of them has left the hospital, according to the latest report released by the prosecutor on Sunday.
Five of the six victims are of Turkish nationality, the last French.
“Indicating that he is angry with “all the migrants”, he explains that he attacked victims he did not know, specifying that he is angry with the Kurds for having taken prisoners during their fight against Daesh [acronyme en arabe de l’organisation djihadiste État islamique, NDLR] instead of killing them,” the prosecution said.
He “intended to use all the ammunition and kill himself with the last bullet”, but was stopped by several people at a nearby hair salon before being arrested by the police.
The first elements obtained during a search of his parents, including the seizure of a computer and a smartphone, did not establish “any link with an extremist ideology”, according to the prosecutor.
The suspect claimed to have acquired his weapon four years ago from a member of the shooting club to which he belonged at the time, who is now dead, she added. He had hidden it at his parents’ house and assured that he had never used it before.
Already convicted in 2017 for carrying a prohibited weapon and last June for violence with weapons on burglars – the facts he mentioned in police custody – he is indicted in December 2021 for violence with weapons, with premeditation. and racist.
Anger and demonstrations
He is suspected of having stabbed migrants at a camp in Paris on December 8, 2021.
After a year in pre-trial detention, he was released on December 12, 2022.
Friday’s attack shocked the Kurdish community, which denounced a “terrorist” act and blamed Turkey.
That the track of the terrorist attack was not retained from the outset aroused anger and incomprehension. “The fact that our associations are targeted is of a terrorist and political nature”, declared Agit Polat, spokesperson for the CDK-F.
In the capital, a gathering of several thousand people was marred by violence and degradation.
PHOTO SARAH MEYSSONNIER, REUTERS
Protesters overturned a car during a December 24 rally in Paris.
An adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan posted photos of overturned and burnt cars in Paris on Twitter on Sunday, writing “it’s the PKK in France”, “the same organization you support in Syria” and “which killed thousands of Turks, Kurds and security forces over the past forty years”.