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SFAX: The family of a man arrested for killing three parishioners in France weeks after leaving their home in Tunisia has told AFP they are struggling to believe that he carried out the attack.
“It’s not normal,” Brahim Issaoui’s brother Yassine said, incredulous that his brother was responsible for the attack, which came amid widespread anger among Muslims over French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments.
Macron had staunchly defended secular values and the right to scoff at religion after a French school teacher, who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad deemed offensive to Muslims, was killed earlier this month in a suburb. from Paris.
Issaoui, 21, is in serious condition after being shot several times by police following Thursday’s brutal knife attack in the southern city of Nice.
Born into a family of modest means in the central Tunisian city of Sfax, Issaoui had turned to religion and isolated himself in the past two years, relatives told AFP.
“He prayed… (and) went home to work and back, never mingling with others or leaving the house,” said his mother, Gamra, crying as she held up a passport photo of the young man in a white sweatshirt.
But before that, “he drank alcohol and used drugs. I used to say to him, ‘Are we poor and are you wasting money?’ He would reply, ‘God willing, he will guide me on the right path, it’s my business,’ “he added.
Help us discover the truth
But Issaoui’s recent religiosity did not mean that he became an extremist driven to murder, his sister Aida said.
“I have a message for the families of the victims,” he said. “We are a family of modest means, but our brother is not a murderer, he is not a terrorist, he is not an extremist, we want you to help us discover the truth.”
“If he really was the one who did this, it’s because someone did.”
A cousin, Kaies Issaoui, said: “The whole family is shocked. We are all against terrorism and we feel disgraced by these acts ”.
Before the 2011 revolution, the Tunisian authorities controlled the practice of religion and repressed dissent.
The country then saw a rise in radical Islam after the uprising and a wave of jihadist attacks in 2015.
Although the security situation has greatly improved, sporadic attacks still occur against security forces in particular.
Tunisia on Thursday strongly condemned the attack and said it would launch an investigation.
According to the country’s authorities, the young man had a criminal record, but nothing related to terrorism.
“He clandestinely left the country on September 14 and has a criminal record of violence and drugs under customary law,” Mohsen Dali, deputy attorney general of the Tunisian Court of First Instance, told AFP.
Issaoui, one of 11 siblings, lived with his parents in a modest house on a bumpy street in a working-class neighborhood near an industrial area on the outskirts of Sfax.
His mother said her son had dropped out of school and worked as a motorcycle mechanic.
Having reserved some money, he opened a service station without a license, similar to those found in Tunisia, where most of the economic activity takes place outside the official system.
“I told him to rent a small shop with the 1,100 to 1,200 dinars (about $ 400 he had saved) so he could work,” his mother said.
“He told me he wanted to set up a stand to sell gasoline.”
Trip to Europe
Issaoui joined a wave of Tunisians leaving for Italy that has grown in recent months due to the combined pressures of the Covid-19 crisis, which has exacerbated already rising unemployment, and a political crisis.
The number of Tunisians who migrated illegally to Italy reached a record 20,000 after the 2011 revolution, before falling sharply. The number of arrivals has increased again since 2017.
Issaoui had already tried to reach Europe once and did not tell his family that he was making another attempt, according to his brother.
After successfully arriving in Italy and finding work picking olives, his brother added, he headed to France.
“He said he went to France because it was better for the job and there were too many people in Italy,” Yassine said.
The family said he called on the night of October 28, the day before the attack, to tell them that he had just arrived in the country and would find a place to sleep outside before looking for work.
Incredulous, they said they could not understand how he was going to be able to carry out the attack in Nice just hours after arriving in France.
While many Tunisians condemned Macron’s statements on Islam, his comments have sparked a debate on freedom of expression, seen as one of the strongest achievements of the country’s 2011 revolution.
