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Eiffel Tower knifeman 'wanted to kill soldier' | ||
2017-08-07 | ||
[TheLocal.fr] A man tossed in the clinkMaw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! at the Eiffel Tower after brandishing a knife in front of tourists and security forces has told Sherlocks he wanted to kill a soldier, sources close to the case told AFP on Sunday.
Armed soldiers who are permanently stationed at the Eiffel Tower surrounded him and ordered him to drop his weapon, which he did without attacking anyone, one security source said, asking not to be named. In custody, he said he wanted to commit "an attack against a soldier and had been in contact with a member of the jihadist group Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... who encouraged him to take action," a separate source told AFP. Evacuation Police had initially treated Saturday's Eiffel Tower incident as a criminal case, but anti-terror prosecutors have since taken over the investigation. After the arrest, police checked the Eiffel Tower site and called for it to be evacuated at around 00:30, 15 minutes before it normally closes, a statement from the company that runs the monument said. The intruder was wearing a Gay Paree Saint-Germain football shirt. At the time of the incident the tower was lit up with the colours of the team to welcome the club's new world-record signing, Brazilian star Neymar. The legal source said the man with the knife, a Frenchie born in the West African state of Mauritania, was a patient in a psychiatric hospital who had been let out for the weekend. He was found guilty of inciting terrorism and making death threats in December 2016 and received a suspended sentence. The tower reopened on Sunday morning as usual at 09:00 am (0700 GMT) Gay Paree mayor Anne Hidalgo praised the "professionalism and reactions" of security forces at the site.
A member of his family told Le Gay Pareeien newspaper "For a little while, Mamaye had benefited from permission to leave the Persan hospital to come and see us at weekends. When he did he stayed in the living room. On Saturday, I didn't notice anything special about his behavior." According to a source close to the investigation and press reports, the suspect had threatened SNCF railway personnel in 2015 and was convicted in December last year on charges of defending acts of terrorism and for making death threats. He was given a four-month suspended sentence. | ||
Posted by:trailing wife |
#2 No. It's France. Not Tehran. |
Posted by: Pappy 2017-08-07 08:16 |
#1 Received a suspended sentence? From the tower? |
Posted by: Skidmark 2017-08-07 01:33 |