The Islamic extremist who killed a young German-Filipino tourist and wounded two others near the Eiffel Tower late Saturday night pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, according to a video he posted online, before going on the rampage, the anti-terrorism prosecutor said today. service.

Speaking in Arabic in the video, 26-year-old Franco-Iranian Armand Rajabour-Miyadoab was expressing “his support for the jihadists who are operating in different areas,” Jean-Francois Ricard told a news conference.

“This video was specifically posted on his platform X (formerly Twitter) account,” which he opened in early October and contained “many posts about Hamas, Gaza and Palestine in general,” according to the judge.

The Islamist’s mother had expressed her concern about her son’s behavior in late October, the prosecutor said.

His mother had told police she was worried about her son who had “closed himself off,” Jean-Francois Ricard told the news conference.

“Coming from a family without any religious affiliation,” Arman Rajabour-Miyadoab converted to Islam at 18 and “very quickly embraced the jihadist ideology.”

With a record of Islamic radicalization, he was sentenced in 2018 to five years in prison for participating in a criminal organization with the intention of preparing a terrorist act, for a plan of violent action in 2016 in the business district of La Défense, west of Paris.

After being detained by the police as part of this investigation, he had declared that he was “radicalized and self-deradicalized”, according to a decision obtained by AFP.

He had “established links with people strictly committed to the jihadist ideology”, but without these contacts being functional for the preparation of attacks, Ricard stressed.

But after “the contact he had through social networks with the future perpetrator of the assassination of Samuel Pati” (the professor who was murdered in October 2020) and “the development of certain psychiatric disorders”, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) had ” obtain an increase in the obligations to which the person was subject’ and in particular ‘an order for care’.

This judicial follow-up ended on 26 April 2023, with a support subsequently provided by the intelligence services.

In early October 2023, Arman Rajapour-Miyadoab created an account on the X platform, which contained “many posts about Hamas, Gaza and Palestine in general,” according to the judge.

Before springing into action on Saturday, he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a video he posted to that account, offering “his support to jihadists operating in various areas.”

“The creation of this account on X and then the concern of his mother in the same month can raise questions about an action that has been in preparation for several weeks,” said a source with knowledge of the case.

As the attacker and three members of his family or entourage were in custody on Sunday afternoon, investigators are trying to ascertain the date of purchase of the weapons.