The 69-year-old is accused of killing Emine Cara, an official of the Kurdish Movement in France, as well as two men, including the artist and political refugee Mir Perver.
The 69-year-old man accused of killing three Kurds in Paris on Friday was released today from the psychiatric clinic where he had been taken and is expected to be brought before an investigator tomorrow to prosecute him, prosecutors said.
The suspect, who admitted during questioning that he feels a “pathological hatred of foreigners”, was taken into custody again this afternoon, the prosecutor’s office said. His detention was lifted late Saturday night, when it was deemed necessary to transfer him to a psychiatric clinic for health reasons.
The 69-year-old is accused of killing Emine Cara, an official of the Kurdish Movement in France, as well as two men, including the artist and political refugee Mir Perver.
Three other men were injured – one seriously – but their lives are not in danger. Five of the six victims had Turkish citizenship and one had French citizenship.
According to the prosecution, from the investigation conducted at the home of the 69-year-old’s parents, where he also lived, no evidence was found that he was connected to any extremist group. It appears that he had initially sought victims in a suburb of the French capital but then abandoned that plan.
During police questioning, he explained that his “hatred of strangers became pathological” after a burglary at his home in 2016, prosecutor Lor Becchio explained.
He claimed to be depressed and suicidal. “But before I killed myself I always wanted to kill immigrants, foreigners, after that break-in.”
For this reason he went early on Friday morning to Saint-Denis, a popular suburb in the north of Paris, taking with him a Colt 45 automatic pistol “to assassinate foreigners”. The prosecutor said she eventually abandoned that attempt because there were not many people around and the clothes he was wearing would have made it difficult for him to reload his gun.
He thus returned to his parents’ house and came out again later, to go to the neighborhood where he knew the Kurdish community center was located. And there he opened fire.
He did not know any of his victims. But he said he wanted to kill Kurds because “they were holding prisoners in their fight against the Islamic State, rather than killing them.”
He intended to use all the ammunition he had “and kill himself with the last bullet” but was stopped by some people in a neighboring salon and then arrested by the police.
Prosecutors also said in recent days that the suspect had launched a sword attack at a migrant camp in Paris a year ago and had recently been released pending trial.
The suspect claims he bought the gun four years ago from a member of a shooting club and hid it, unused, until Friday.
Earlier today, hundreds of Syrian Kurds demonstrated in Hasakah for the three “martyrs” killed in Paris. Those gathered chanted slogans against the “extermination” of the Kurdish people and declared that “the martyrs of Paris will forever remain in our hearts.”
“The Kurds are fighting their own extermination and are being massacred everywhere, even in Paris, the city of love and freedom,” said activist Evin Basso, 33, calling for the perpetrator to be brought to justice.
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