Investigators from the crime squad are still trying to formally identify the man who attacked and injured six people with stabbing, this Wednesday morning, at the Gare du Nord (10th). No identity document was found on the suspect who was overpowered by police officers who opened fire on him. Hit in the arm and lung, he was transported to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital. He was operated on the same day.
The attacker first gave, in the morning, a first identity which, in the end, turned out to be false. By comparing his fingerprints with those in their files, the police discovered that he was already known to their services for common law acts, under several names and with different dates of birth.
A man in his twenties
“It could be a man born in Libya or Algeria and in his twenties, whose exact age is not confirmed”, indicated in the evening the public prosecutor of Paris, Laure Beccuau, in a press release. The suspect “could not be interviewed given his state of health,” said the magistrate.
According to our information, one of the identities under which he was registered in the automated fingerprint file corresponds to that of a Libyan national, born in 2000, who arrived in France three years ago. This person is the subject of an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF), issued in 2022, which had not been executed. Indeed, France could not expel him to this country. First, because of the instability that reigns there. But also because there is no exchange channel with Libya for the identification of its nationals.
“A metal hook” as a weapon
Around 6:45 a.m., the suspect injured several people in the Gare du Nord with “a metal hook whose longest part ends in a point, surrounded on its major part by a string allowing a better grip”, said the Paris prosecutor. He first attacked, “for no apparent reason at this stage”, a first victim “to whom he struck about twenty blows”. In all, six people were injured. “These are two men aged 36 and 41, station users, a 46-year-old policeman assigned to the border police (PAF) at the Gare du Nord, and three women aged 40, 47, and 53 years old, users of the station”, detailed Laure Beccuau.
An investigation was opened on the head of attempted assassination, entrusted to the entire judicial police with the criminal brigade as coordinator. The general inspectorate of the national police was also seized because of the use by police officers of their service weapon.
For now, the assailant’s motives remain unclear. “To my knowledge, he said nothing” at the time of the events, declared the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, during a press briefing. But according to our information, the police officers who fired said they heard him make remarks in Arabic that were not “Allahu Akbar”. An element that the police officers of the Crime ‘were still trying to verify this afternoon. The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) told 20 minutes that it was, for the time being, “under evaluation”.