The police custody of the 69-year-old man suspected of having murdered three Kurds on Friday in Paris and who admitted having wanted to kill foreigners, was lifted on Monday morning and he will be presented to an investigating judge with a view to a possible indictment. A judicial investigation has been opened for assassination and attempted assassination on the basis of race, ethnicity, nation or religion, as well as for unauthorized acquisition and possession of weapons, added the prosecution, which specifies having requested remand in custody of the suspect.
The racist motive of the facts is confirmed: this retired train driver of French nationality told investigators that he felt a “hatred of foreigners that had become completely pathological” since the burglary of his home in 2016, said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau. He described himself as “depressive” and “suicidal” and, according to Laure Beccuau, added: “but before committing suicide, I always wanted to murder migrants, foreigners” since this burglary.
He blames “all migrants”
Early Friday morning, he went armed to Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) “to commit murders on foreign people”, continued the prosecutor. But, for lack of people in particular, he gave up his project. After returning to his parents’ Parisian home, where he lived, he walked to rue d’Enghien (10th arrondissement) to the Kurdish cultural center Ahmet-Kaya, whose location he knew. The 60-year-old then opened fire with a handgun, killing two men, Mir Perwer, a Kurdish political refugee singer, and Abdurrahman Kizil, as well as the head of the Kurdish Women’s Movement in France, Emine Kara.
Three other men were injured. Five of the six victims are of Turkish nationality, the last of French nationality. The man explained “having attacked victims he did not know”, specifying that he was angry “at all the migrants” and “at the Kurds for having ”taken prisoners during their fight against Daesh (l ‘Islamic State organization, editor’s note) instead of killing them”, detailed Laure Beccuau.
Unknown to intelligence services
His intention was “to use all the ammunition and kill himself with the last bullet”, according to the prosecutor. Placed in police custody on Friday shortly after the events, he was taken to the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters on Saturday at the end of the day for health reasons. His custody was finally able to resume Sunday at 4:25 p.m. until his release Monday morning. In another case, the alleged shooter was indicted, in particular for violence with a racist weapon, suspected of having stabbed migrants in a Paris camp on December 8, 2021.
Placed in pre-trial detention for one year, the maximum period provided for by law for this type of act, he was released on December 12. The elements seized during the search of the parental home did not reveal “any link with an extremist ideology”, specified Laure Beccuau. He is not known to the intelligence services either, nor listed as an ultra-right activist, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.