LIVE – Killing in Paris: the suspect told the police that he wanted to attack the Kurdish community

According to information from BFMTV, the shooter who was arrested and taken into custody told the police that he wanted to attack the Kurdish community.

He also described himself, during his arrest, as “racist”, we learned from concordant sources, confirming information from the JDD.

>> Find our full article on BFMTV.com

In the aftermath of the killing, this district of the 10th arrondissement is still in shock. Several dozen people gathered this Saturday morning in front of the Kurdish center and chanted slogans.

These people will then move to the large gathering scheduled from 12 p.m. on the Place de la République.

A vigil was held overnight from Friday to Saturday. People also came to lay flowers and candles.

A few minutes after Gérald Darmanin spoke at the scene of the killing yesterday afternoon, clashes broke out.

Members of the Kurdish community threw projectiles at the police, who responded with tear gas, BFMTV learned from a police source.

The number of police officers injured during the clashes was revised upwards this morning, from five to twelve. This report is final.

The Kurdish Democratic Council in France has called for a demonstration this Saturday at 12 p.m. on Place de la République in Paris.

This mobilization is organized by the organization, bringing together twenty-four associations of the Kurdish diaspora throughout France, which denounced the “terrorist attack” committed against its headquarters.

Activists from La France Insoumise (LFI) said they would participate in the rally. A “delegation of LFI deputies” will also be present, learned BFMTV.

A rally in solidarity with the Kurdish people and in tribute to the victims of the shooting was already held this Friday afternoon in Marseille.

More information here.

A gathering of the Kurdish community took place Friday evening, at the scene of the killing. On the spot, people repeatedly expressed their anger after the tragedy, linking this attack to the murders of three Kurdish activists in January 2013.

“We are here to show our anger, ten years ago, three Kurdish comrades, three women, three symbols of the Kurdish community were murdered”, recalls a demonstrator. “It is unacceptable that people are murdered like this in the middle of Paris.”

>> Find our full article on BFMTV.com

During the meeting scheduled this morning with the prefect of police of Paris, “we will reiterate the fact that we told the French authorities about three weeks ago that we were in danger”, explained on BFMTV Berivan Firat, spokesperson for external relations of the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDKF).

“We know it, we are threatened, Kurds in general, Kurdish activists Kurdish militants are threatened, and France owes us protection,” she said. “We are not only militants for the Kurdish cause, but we are also Franco-Kurds or political refugees” and “this protection is due to us”.

For Berivan Firat, spokesman for external relations of the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDKF), “the Kurdish community was directly targeted” in Friday’s attack, “and that is why we refuse the qualification of racist act. We maintain and emphasize that this is a terrorist attack”.

“The time and day of the attack is not trivial. On that day the Kurdish women’s movement had a meeting with about sixty women to organize demonstrations and actions for the commemoration of January 9, 2013” date when three Kurdish women were killed in Paris.

If this meeting had not been postponed by an hour at the last minute “there would have been a carnage”, she declares, assuring that “it is this meeting which was targeted.”

The prefect of police of Paris will receive “the leaders of the Kurdish community on Saturday December 24 at 10 am”, writes the prefecture in a press release. This at the request of the President of the Republic and the Minister of the Interior.

The man “was arrested immediately after the events and placed in police custody,” said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau. An investigation was opened for assassination, attempted assassination, intentional violence with weapons and violation of the legislation on weapons.

According to the first elements of the investigation, the motive of racism is one of the avenues explored but must be confirmed in particular by the statements of the suspect during his police custody. The track of a terrorist attack has been ruled out at this stage of the investigations, according to the prosecutor.

He was sentenced last June to twelve months in prison for violence with weapons committed in 2016, a sentence which he appealed.

This man was also indicted in December 2021 for violence with weapons, with premeditation and of a racist nature, and damage for acts committed on December 8, 2021. In this second case, he is suspected of having injured the bladed weapon of migrants from a camp in the 12th arrondissement and to have slashed their tents, a police source reported at the time.

After a year in pre-trial detention, he was released on December 12, as required by law, and placed under judicial supervision, said the prosecutor.

Shortly before noon Friday, rue d’Enghien, in the tenth arrondissement of the capital, a 69-year-old man used his weapon several times. Three people died (a woman and two men), a man was seriously injured and two men less seriously, according to the latest report.

According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who went there in the afternoon, two people were killed in front of the Kurdish cultural center Ahmet-Kaya and the third in a nearby restaurant. No details have leaked on the profile of the victims, who were not “known to the French services”, according to the minister.