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A man detained in connection with an attack on a church in the southern French city of Nice is believed to have emigrated from Tunisia with the alleged Islamist knife, sources close to the investigation said today, as Catholics overcame their fear. to attend religious services under strong security measures.
Three people were killed in the stab attack Thursday on the Notre-Dame basilica that prosecutors say was carried out by a young Tunisian newcomer to Europe.
It was the latest attack in France described by the government as an “Islamist” act of terror, following the reissue of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by the weekly Charlie Hebdo in September.
In Nice, three men were released from police custody today after authorities determined they were not linked to suspected attacker Brahim Issaoui, sources close to the investigation said.
Three men remain in custody, including a 29-year-old Tunisian suspected of traveling together with Issaoui from his homeland.
The tensions did not prevent Catholics from going to church to celebrate All Saints’ holiday in Nice, as authorities allowed an exemption during the coronavirus shutdown.
“I was apprehensive, I was afraid to come,” said Claudia, 49, as she went to church, reassured by the presence of heavily armed soldiers.
“We need to show that we are not afraid and that we are here,” he said, following other faithful to the church, where an evening mass was celebrated to honor the three victims.
The Bishop of Nice, Andre Marceau, said that “the abomination of this terrorist act has stained” the space, attacking “a perverse, toxic and deadly ideology”.
In an attempt to create mutual understanding, a group of Muslim imams and their families attended mass today at the Saint-Esprit de Bagatelle church in the city of Toulouse.
“These people, without mind or reason, want to make another interpretation (of the Koran),” Lahouary Siali of the Al-Rahma mosque said, referring to the violent extremists. “We strongly reject it.”
‘He came to kill’
Issaoui was shot several times by the police and is currently in serious condition at the hospital. Investigators have been unable to question him, and his precise motivations remain unclear.
But Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Issaoui “clearly had gone there (to Nice) to kill.”
“Otherwise, how can we explain why he armed himself with several knives and had just arrived? … It is clear that he did not come alone to get his papers,” Darmanin told the Voix du Nord newspaper.
Investigators believe Issaoui traveled to Europe via the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in Italy on September 20.
The 21-year-old arrived at the port of Bari in mainland Italy on October 9 before arriving in Nice just two days before the attack.
The last detained people, aged 25 and 63, were arrested on Saturday at the residence of the 29-year-old Tunisian, who was detained the same day, a judicial source told AFP.
The Tunisian detainee is “suspected of mixing with” Issaoui during his trip to Europe, a source close to the investigation told AFP, adding that he probably also arrived in France recently.
Lyon Priest Shot
France is on the brink of an early September reissue of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, followed by an attack in front of its former offices, the beheading of a teacher and the attack in Nice.
On Saturday, an attacker armed with a sawed-off shotgun seriously wounded a Greek Orthodox priest in a shooting outside a church in the French city of Lyon.
Nikolaos Kakavelaki, 52, was closing his Lyon church in the middle of the afternoon when he was attacked and is now in serious condition in hospital.
The attacker fled the scene and one person was arrested. But the man was released today after investigators found no evidence that he was linked, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors say they are keeping all hypotheses open, but have so far not referred the case to counter-terrorism colleagues.
French President Emmanuel Macron had promised after the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who showed his class a caricature of the prophet, that France would never renounce the right to caricature.
This comment sparked a storm of anger in the Muslim world, with furious protests held in numerous countries over the past week.
But Macron, who has vowed to crack down on radical Islamism, tried to quell anger at France by saying in an interview with an Arab TV channel that he could understand Muslims might be shocked by the cartoons.
Charlie Hebdo had republished the cartoons to mark the start of the trial of suspected accomplices in the 2015 massacre of his staff by Islamist gunmen. The trial has been suspended until Wednesday after the main suspect tested positive for coronavirus.
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