A Syrian refugee detained in the stabbing of six people, including four children, in the French Alpine town of Annecy has been charged with “attempted murder”.
PARIS – A Syrian refugee detained in the stabbing of six people, including four children, in the French Alpine town of Annecy has been charged with “attempted murder”, a prosecutor said.
The suspect, named as Abdalmasih H, born in 1991, was taken into custody after going on a stabbing rampage on Thursday at a playground in the Alpine town of Annecy, a normally idyllic lakeside spot popular with tourists.
The chilling attack stunned France, which has suffered a series of attacks in the past decade, most of them by Islamic extremists.
The Annecy stabbing was the first violent attack targeting children since 2012, when gunman Mohamed Merah shot three Jewish children and one of their parents, and then three soldiers, in Toulouse in 2012.
The motivation of the Annecy playground attack remains unclear.
Witnesses described the assailant running around the park on the banks of Lake Annecy wearing a bandanna and sunglasses, apparently attacking people at random.
They told investigators that they heard the suspect call out for “his wife, his daughter” and shouted “Jesus Christ”, the prosecutor added.
Police found a folding knife, two Christian faith images, a cross as well as cash and a Swedish driver’s licence when they arrested him.
The victims of the attack were no longer in a life-threatening condition, Bonnet-Mathis said. Two of the four children, aged between 22 months and three years, and one of the adult victims were initially hospitalised in a serious condition.
The suspect has chosen not to speak while in police custody and when presented before judges, the prosecutor said.
He was examined by a psychiatrist who considered that he was fit to be held in custody.
Drug and alcohol tests were negative.
“Presently it is premature to assess his motivations,” public prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis told a press conference, reiterating that there was no indication yet that terrorism was the assailant’s motivation.
BFM television said the suspect was being held in solitary confinement at Aiton prison in the region of Savoie, some 80km from Annecy.
The suspect entered France in October 2022, having travelled through Italy and Switzerland, the prosecutor said, adding that he had no police record in France and was thought to be homeless.
Recently divorced from a Swedish national, the suspect had previously lived for 10 years in Sweden where he was granted refugee status in April, security sources and his ex-wife told AFP.
“He called me around four months ago. He was living in a church,” his ex-wife said, adding that he left the country because he had been unable to get Swedish nationality.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told broadcaster TF1 that “for reasons not well explained, he had also sought asylum in Switzerland, Italy and France”.
It emerged that his application in France was rejected last Sunday as he already enjoyed refugee status in Sweden.
The attack left the normally peaceful town of Annecy in shock, and hundreds of people have laid flowers at the site of the attack.
On Sunday morning, residents will gather at the lake in support of the victims while the city’s mayor will pay homage to those who “acted with courage and professionalism” and try to intervene.
These include two municipal agents who tried to stop the attacker with a shovel, a young man renting out pedal boats and a maths teacher who both tried to step in, a child-minder who rushed to rescue two injured children, and a tourist who chased the attacker.
– REUTERS and AFP
