Ali Hassan’s father, a young man who stabbed two people in an attack with a butcher knife in front of the former Paris office of the controversial magazine Charlie Hebdo last week, has said he is “proud” of his son. In an interview with the Naya Pakistan channel, the father, whose name is not being disclosed, said his son “did a great job” and is “very happy” about the attack.
The French government had condemned Friday’s stabbing in front of the former office of the satirical magazine as an act of “Islamist terrorism.”
The man, previously identified as Ali Hassan, seriously injured two employees of the television production agency Premieres Lignes, whose offices are on the same downtown block that used to house Charlie Hebdo magazine. The magazine had changed after the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo, a policewoman and a Jewish supermarket that left 17 people dead. The current address of the magazine is being kept secret for security reasons, AFP reported.
On Monday, the news agency said the man, who had previously stated in a two-minute video that he was going to target the magazine, identified himself as Zaheer Hassan Mehmood.
Ali Hassan, aka Zaheer Hassan Mehmood, is accused of stabbing two people believed to be working with the magazine. Friday’s attack came three weeks after a trial in Paris of suspected accomplices of those responsible for the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo, a policewoman and a Jewish supermarket that left 17 dead, the Reuters news agency said.
Back in Pakistan, the attacker’s father appealed to the Imran Khan government and other Islamic countries to help him bring his son home. “I want to appeal to the government of Pakistan to bring my son home. He has served the cause of Islam and we are a Muslim country, “he told the Pakistani channel.
Ali Hassan, his father said, “was a good son” who prayed regularly and attended Milad twice a year. He said Ali Hassan was a follower of Muhammad Ilyas Qadri, a Pakistani Sunni Muslim scholar and founder of the Dawat-e-Islami organization, which has established a chain of madrasas in Pakistan and abroad.
Ali Hassan’s father, a farmer, lives in the small town of Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab. He said Ali Hassan had left for France two years ago. Of his five children, three are abroad, two in France and one in Italy. “My son has the heart of a lion,” he told his interviewer.
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