The Nancy prosecutor’s office announced Thursday that it had opened a judicial investigation for “administration of harmful substances with a weapon” and “violence with a weapon by destination” after the arrest on Wednesday around 1:00 a.m. of a man suspected of having stung three people during of the music festival on Tuesday evening, report our colleagues from The Republican East. The man was charged and remanded in custody.
“The investigating judge will ultimately retain the most appropriate qualification depending on the results of the toxicological analyzes”, added the public prosecutor, François Pérain, who had requested these “urgent” analyzes of the blood samples taken from the two first victims. “For the moment, nothing allows us to affirm that a product has been injected”, however specified the magistrate.
Police found two syringes in the suspect’s backpack. He told investigators that he had these syringes “in order to be able to consume cocaine”, according to the prosecution.
The alleged attacker filmed
While in police custody, this homeless man, born in 1987 and already known to the courts, denied the facts and explained that he was “heavily alcoholic”, that he therefore did not remember his evening and “that he did not see himself committing such acts”.
Two victims, a 24-year-old man and a 17-year-old woman, had gone to see police officers on patrol at the music festival on Tuesday evening, complaining of injections. One of them had filmed her alleged attacker: the video had enabled the police to identify the man and arrest him.
“Tingles”
A third victim, a 23-year-old woman, then came to the police to denounce similar facts, said François Pérain. She told investigators that a person “ran into her, shoving her, and slapping her arm very hard as she passed” around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, then that she felt “tingling where she had been hit”.
The description she gave of the person who pushed her “could correspond to the respondent”, but she did not formally identify him, said the prosecutor.
A fourth person, a 20-year-old man, also declared “to have been the victim of a piqueur”, facts which cannot “for the moment be formally attributed” to the suspect, added the prosecution, specifying that “the investigations on this point continue”.
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