Jakarta –
A refugee Syria knife-wielding four preschoolers and injuring two adults by the lake in French Alps on Thursday. The motive for this attack is not yet known.
The youngest victim in the city of Annecy was 22 months old and investigators are trying to understand the reason for the rampage in the public park around 9:45 am (0745 GMT).
The attacker, dressed in black and carrying a knife about 10 centimeters (four inches) long, was heard shouting “in the name of Jesus Christ” in a video taken by a bystander and seen by AFP.
“There is no clear terrorist motive,” local prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis told reporters in the lakeside town near the Swiss city of Geneva.
He said an investigation into the attempted murder had been opened and the suspect was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the suspect was “unknown to any intelligence service” and had no “history of psychiatric problems”.
“We are appalled by this hateful and indescribable act,” he said after rushing to the scene.
The suspect is known to be in his 30s and recently divorced. He had lived for 10 years in Sweden where he was granted refugee status in April, a security source and his ex-wife told AFP.
“He called me about four months ago. He lives in a church,” his ex-wife said on condition of anonymity, saying he had left Sweden because he could not get Swedish citizenship.
Witnesses described him running around the park on the shores of Lake Annecy wearing a bandanna and sunglasses, apparently attacking people at random.
Armed police arrested him at the scene.
“He wanted to attack everyone. I moved away and he lunged at old men and women and stabbed the old man,” former professional footballer Anthony Le Tallec, who was running in the park, told local newspaper Dauphine Libere.
A large deployment of security forces cordoned off the park and forensic officers are analyzing the scene, an AFP journalist saw.
(eva/eva)
2023-06-08 20:40:05
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