By The Guardian
Police continue to question gunman after French interior minister says intelligence services had flagged up suspect’s links to radical Islam
After the French interior minister said European intelligence services had flagged up the suspect’s links to “radical Islamist movements”, French investigators were focusing on an extremist attack.
Under questioning at France’s anti-terrorist police headquarters just outside Paris, El-Khazzani, whose face was reportedly still bruised after his beating by the American passengers who overcame him, denied terrorism or any intention of waging a jihadi attack. He said he had merely stumbled upon a weapons stash and decided to use it to rob passengers.
“He doesn’t understand why this incident has taken on such great proportions,” his lawyer, Sophie Duval, told Le Parisien, adding that El-Khazzani said he had just wanted to rob passengers and denied “any terrorism dimension to what he did”. The lawyer added that suggestions of terrorism “almost made him laugh”.
El-Khazzani, who was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, nine magazines, a pistol and a box cutter, told police he had found the arms, as well as a mobile phone, in an abandoned suitcase in a park near the Brussels station where he normally sleeps.
His lawyer said: “He has been homeless since his identity documents were stolen in Brussels. He has worked as a painter in Spain, where he was also convicted twice for drug trafficking in 2013.”
Le Parisien reported that he spoke Arabic and knew a few words of French, and was being assisted by a translator in police questioning.
His lawyer later told BFMTV of her impressions of El-Khazzani in the first hours of his police interview: “[I saw] somebody who was very sick, somebody very weakened physically, as if he suffered from malnutrition, very, very thin and very haggard.”
She said he told him he had found the Kalashnikov in a park near the Gare du Midi rail station in Brussels where he was in the habit of sleeping. “A few days later he decided to get on a train that some other homeless people told him would be full of wealthy people travelling from Amsterdam to Paris and he hoped to feed himself by armed robbery,” she said.
Under questioning at France’s anti-terrorist police headquarters just outside Paris, El-Khazzani, whose face was reportedly still bruised after his beating by the American passengers who overcame him, denied terrorism or any intention of waging a jihadi attack. He said he had merely stumbled upon a weapons stash and decided to use it to rob passengers.
“He doesn’t understand why this incident has taken on such great proportions,” his lawyer, Sophie Duval, told Le Parisien, adding that El-Khazzani said he had just wanted to rob passengers and denied “any terrorism dimension to what he did”. The lawyer added that suggestions of terrorism “almost made him laugh”.
El-Khazzani, who was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, nine magazines, a pistol and a box cutter, told police he had found the arms, as well as a mobile phone, in an abandoned suitcase in a park near the Brussels station where he normally sleeps.
His lawyer said: “He has been homeless since his identity documents were stolen in Brussels. He has worked as a painter in Spain, where he was also convicted twice for drug trafficking in 2013.”
Le Parisien reported that he spoke Arabic and knew a few words of French, and was being assisted by a translator in police questioning.
His lawyer later told BFMTV of her impressions of El-Khazzani in the first hours of his police interview: “[I saw] somebody who was very sick, somebody very weakened physically, as if he suffered from malnutrition, very, very thin and very haggard.”
She said he told him he had found the Kalashnikov in a park near the Gare du Midi rail station in Brussels where he was in the habit of sleeping. “A few days later he decided to get on a train that some other homeless people told him would be full of wealthy people travelling from Amsterdam to Paris and he hoped to feed himself by armed robbery,” she said.
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