L’69-year-old man, in police custody since Friday, December 23, because suspected of being the author of the attack which left three dead among the Kurdish community in Paris, was presented to an investigating judge with a view to a possible indictment, said the Paris prosecutor’s office. His police custody was indeed lifted on Monday morning. A judicial investigation has been opened for assassination and attempted assassination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nation or religion, as well as for unauthorized acquisition and possession of weapons, added the prosecution, specifying that it had requested the provisional detention of the suspect.
The racist motive of the facts is confirmed: this retired train driver of French nationality told investigators that he felt a “hatred of foreigners that had become completely pathological” since the burglary of his home in 2016, said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau. He described himself as “depressive” and “suicidal” and, according to Laure Beccuau, added: “But before committing suicide, I always wanted to murder migrants, foreigners” since this burglary.
Early Friday morning, he went armed to Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) “to commit murders on foreign people”, continued the prosecutor. But, for lack of people in particular, he gave up his project. After returning to his parents’ Parisian home, where he lived, he walked to rue d’Enghien (10e district) to the Kurdish cultural center Ahmet-Kaya, whose location he knew.
“All migrants” targeted
The 60-year-old then opened fire with a handgun, killing two men, Mir Perwer, a Kurdish political refugee singer, and Abdurrahman Kizil, as well as the head of the Kurdish Women’s Movement in France, Emine Kara. Three other men were injured. Five of the six victims are of Turkish nationality, the last of French nationality.
The man explained “having attacked victims he did not know”, specifying that he blamed “all the migrants” and the Kurds for having “constituted prisoners during their fight against Daesh [l’organisation État islamique, NDLR] instead of killing them”, detailed Laure Beccuau. His intention was “to use all the ammunition and kill himself with the last bullet”, according to the prosecutor. His weapon, a Colt 45, four magazines containing a total of 14 ammunition and a box of 25 ammunition were found during his arrest.
As soon as he was arrested, the suspect had indicated that he had acted because he was “racist”, said a source familiar with the matter. Placed in police custody on Friday shortly after the events, he was taken to the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters on Saturday at the end of the day for health reasons. His custody was finally able to resume Sunday at 4:25 p.m. until his release Monday morning.
In another case, the alleged shooter was indicted, in particular for violence with a racist weapon, suspected of having stabbed migrants in a Paris camp on December 8, 2021. Placed in pre-trial detention for one year, the maximum duration provided for by law for this type of offence, he was released on 12 December.
Flowers and candles
The elements seized during the search of the parental home did not reveal “any link with an extremist ideology”, specified Laure Beccuau. He is not known to the intelligence services either, nor listed as an ultra-right activist, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
Several hundred people gathered on Monday at midday rue d’Enghien, in the 10e district of Paris, for a march in tribute to the three Kurds shot dead on Friday near a Kurdish cultural center. Small altars were erected on the sidewalk, where the three victims were shot, on which were placed their photograph as well as candles and bouquets of flowers, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse .
The procession set off around 12:30 p.m. towards rue Lafayette, in the same district of the capital, where three activists from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed on January 9, 2013 in Paris. The demonstrators chanted in Kurdish: “Our martyrs do not die. And in French: “Women, life, freedom”, and claiming “truth and justice”.
Friday’s attack shocked the Kurdish community, which denounced a “terrorist” act and blamed Turkey. For many Kurds, this triple assassination echoes that, never elucidated, of three militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on January 9, 2013 in Paris. After the demonstrations in tribute to the victims on Saturday in Paris, Marseille and Bordeaux, several hundred people gathered again on Monday at midday at the scene of the attack, rue d’Enghien, to march to the rue La Fayette, where the three PKK militants had been killed.
Flowers and candles were placed alongside photos of the victims, placed at the place where they were killed on Friday, noted a journalist from Agence France Presse. Like the representatives of the Kurdish community, the head of La France insoumise (LFI) Jean-Luc Mélenchon asked Monday for a referral to the anti-terrorist prosecution. In a blog post, he explained that he did not believe that the Kurds were killed by “chance”. “Obviously, you can’t consider anything without thinking about Turkey,” he added.