Known to the authorities as a radicalized Islamist who had social media connections to perpetrators of other recent attacks in France, the assailant had also been subject to close psychological surveillance for mental health issues, senior prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard told reporters.
The perpetrator of a knife attack that left one person dead and two injured in Paris on Saturday evening had already been sentenced in 2016 to “four years in prison” for planning another attack, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said.
At the time, he had been arrested by the French national security agency before carrying out the act, the minister added.
“A man attacked a couple who were foreign tourists. A German tourist who was born in the Philippines died from the stabbing,” Darmanin said at the scene, as French anti-terror prosecutors said they would investigate the killing.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday he was sending his condolences to the family of a German killed in a “terror attack” in Paris.
The suspected attacker was “quickly” arrested, and justice should now be done “in the name of the French people," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Miroslava Salazar, with AFP
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