The attack was filmed by a witness with his mobile phone. The images, which circulate on social networks, show a scene of incredible violence. A man dressed in shorts and a black top, a blue scarf tied over his head, holds a knife in his right hand. He trots in a playground located near the garden of Europe, in Annecy, and seems to choose his targets. Frightened passers-by shout. Suddenly, he walks towards strollers and hits small children. Twice, the assailant, who wears a Christian cross, says in English: “In the name of Jesus Christ”. He then calmly flees. The suspect was arrested four minutes later by the police who opened fire, without injuring him. He was taken into custody at the city police station.
According to our information, the suspect is called Abdalmasih H. and is 31 years old. A Syrian national, he previously resided in Trollhättan, in southwestern Sweden, since 2013. He lived with his wife, from whom he has since separated, and their child, now 3 years old. “We met in Turkey, fell in love and came here (to Sweden). After two years we got married, but he couldn’t get Swedish citizenship, so he decided to leave the country. We separated because I didn’t want to leave Sweden,” his ex-wife told AFP, adding that she “didn’t have much news anymore.”
According to the Swedish Migration Authority, he actually applied for and received a residence permit in 2013, but has repeatedly failed to obtain citizenship since 2017.
No “psychiatric” or “legal” history
Arrived in France in a regular situation at the end of last year, the suspect requested asylum with the Ofpra (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) on November 28, 2022. In vain. “It turns out that he had already obtained refugee status in Sweden”, specifies to 20 minutes a source familiar with the matter. “His request was therefore refused in France. It was regular from the point of view of Union law. In his asylum application filed in France, he declared himself a “Christian from Syria”, according to a police source. “We are faced with someone a priori without a fixed address and who has a migratory route in Europe”, specified, during a press point, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, adding that it is a “individual a priori isolated. »
France “has contacted all the judicial services and intelligence services of other countries in Europe and beyond, and this gentleman has no criminal record, is not known to any intelligence service and we did not identify any psychiatric history, ”said the head of government. The motive for the attack remains to be determined. “As it stands, we have no elements that could lead us to believe that there is a terrorist motivation”, declared for her part the prosecutor of Annecy, Line Bonnet-Mathis, specifying that the investigation , entrusted to the central direction of the judicial police, was open for attempted murder.