The French pensioner suspected of killing three Kurds and wounding three others near a Kurdish cultural center in Paris on Friday said he acted “racist”, a motive investigators maintain.
• Also read: Three dead in Paris shootings outside a Kurdish cultural center in the 10th century
• Also read: Shooting in Paris: “a terrorist attack” for the Kurdish Democratic Council in France
During the extension of the suspect’s detention late Saturday morning, “the racial motive of the matter” was “added” to investigations into murder, attempted assassination, gun violence and gun violations, prosecutors said.
The 69-year-old suspect, a retired train driver of French nationality, said during his arrest that he acted because he was “racist,” according to a source familiar with the matter.
Shortly before noon on Friday, the man with a history of violent gun violence killed two men and a woman with a pistol on Rue d’Enghien in central Paris and wounded three other men, one of them seriously to the last balance sheet.
He was overpowered by several people at a hair salon in this busy shopping area popular with the Kurdish community before being arrested.
Beside him was discovered “a briefcase” containing “two or three loaded magazines, a box of .45 caliber cartridges with at least 25 rounds inside,” according to the source close to the file. The weapon used is a US Army “1911 Colt 45” “worn in appearance”.
targeted foreigners
The woman killed, Emine Kara, was a leader of the Kurdish women’s movement in France, according to the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F). Your application for political asylum “was rejected by the French authorities,” the movement’s spokesman, Agit Polat, told the press on Friday.
The two men who died, according to CDK-F, are Abdulrahman Kizil, “an ordinary Kurdish citizen,” and Mir Perwer, a Kurdish artist recognized as a political refugee and “being prosecuted in Turkey for his art.”
A police source confirmed the identities of Emine Kara and Abdulrahman Kizil to AFP.
The Kurdish community spoke of a “terrorist” act and accused Turkey of violent incidents with the police on Friday.
Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nuñez received the leaders of the Kurdish community on Saturday morning. A late morning demonstration gathered several hundred people on the Place de la République in Paris, AFP journalists noted.
The trace of a terrorist attack was excluded at this stage of the investigation, which aroused the incomprehension and anger of the CDK-F. “The fact that our clubs are being targeted is of a terrorist and political nature,” Agit Polat said after his meeting with the police prefect. “We have no doubt that these are political assassinations.”
criminal record
The suspect, who frequented a shooting range, “wanted to attack foreigners” and “apparently acted alone,” French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Friday.
“It is not certain that the murderer who wanted to murder these people (…) did it specifically for the Kurds,” he underlined.
“At this point in time there is nothing that could accredit this man’s affiliation with an extremist ideological movement,” said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau.
He is unknown to the secret services and “was not listed as someone from the far right,” according to Gérald Darmanin.
The alleged shooter has been charged since December 2021 with intentional gun violence and a racist nature, and assault on December 8, 2021.
He is suspected of stabbing migrants at a camp in Paris and smashing their tents.
After a year in pre-trial detention, he was released on December 12, as required by French law, and placed under judicial supervision, according to prosecutors.
In addition, he was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence in 2017 for illegal possession of weapons and last June to 12 months in prison for gun violence in 2016. He appealed against this conviction.
On the morning of the incident, “He didn’t say anything when he left (…) He’s crazy. He’s crazy,” the 90-year-old suspect’s father told AFP, describing him as “taciturn” and “reclusive”.