The scenario of the attack in front of "Charlie Hebdo" becomes clearer

Arrest of the main suspect in the chopper attack that took place in front of the Charlie-Hebdo newspaper -

• Friday September 25, a man armed with a chopper seriously injured two employees of the production company First Lines, at the foot of the former premises of "Charlie Hebdo".

• The main suspect, Zaheer Hassan Mehmood, was arrested an hour later near the Opera Bastille.

• Originally from Pakistan, he arrived in France in August 2018. He received social assistance for children after lying about his age.

Zaheer Hassan Mehmood did not seek to deny.

The main suspect of the chopper attack near the former premises of

recognized, from his first hearing "the materiality of the facts", said Tuesday the national anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, during a brief conference Press.

The man, who thought he was going after journalists from the satirical weekly - he was unaware that the newspaper had moved - said he was "angry" after the new publication of the Muhammad cartoons, to the occasion of the opening of the trial of the attacks of January 2015. He also admitted in police custody that he was not 18 years old, as the French authorities thought, but 25 years old.

A premeditated act

According to the first elements of the investigation, Zaheer Hassan Mehmood would have carried out three locations in the street Nicolas Appert, where the premises of

were actually located

before the attack of the Kouachi brothers.

On the very morning of the incident, the suspect recorded a video of nearly three minutes in which he puts himself in scene.

In his native language, Urdu, he indicates his name is Zaheer Hassan Mehmood and announces his gesture without, however, specifying its content.

"Here in France, they make caricatures on our pure and great prophet (...), I will go and revolt against that", he declares without pledging allegiance to a terrorist group.

He then went to Saint-Denis to buy a chopper - the one that would have been used to commit the attack - a hammer and three bottles of White Spirit.

His initial plan, detailed Jean-François Ricard, was “to enter the premises, possibly using a hammer, and then set them on fire.

"

The suspect explained in police custody having changed his mind when he saw this 32-year-old man and this 28-year-old woman who were smoking a cigarette and whom he then took for employees of the newspaper.

CCTV images show him, in fact, walking past them and then retracing his steps a few moments later.

The attack, lasting about fifteen seconds, is "extremely violent", in the words of the prosecutor.

Armed with a chopper, he strikes his victims in the face and skull and pursues them briefly when they manage to escape.

The young woman, who suffers from wounds and fractures to the face was prescribed 10 days of total interruption of work (ITT), the man, more seriously injured - he suffers in particular from fractures to the skull - is still hospitalized and will have at least three months of ITT.

Leak in the metro

The individual then quickly flees to the nearest metro station, Richard Lenoir.

He will be arrested precisely one hour after the attack, at the Bastille station, armed with a switchblade knife.

The man was unknown to intelligence services and had no criminal record.

He had only been the subject of a call to the law last month for carrying a prohibited weapon, in this case a chopper similar to the one used for the attack.

According to relatives, the assailant had been watching numerous videos of religious leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi for a few weeks at the head of rallies in Pakistan against

.

Arrived in France in August 2018 - four months after leaving Pakistan - the man claimed to be called Hassan Ali and to be 16 in order to receive social assistance for children.

Faced with a photograph of a Pakistani passport showing him with another surname and another date of birth - January 1995 - he finally admitted, in custody, to having lied.

Zaheer Hassan Mehmood will be presented to an examining magistrate in the course of the afternoon with a view to a probable indictment.

A judicial investigation for "attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "criminal terrorist association" has been opened.

All current custody has been lifted, but the investigation is continuing to try to determine whether the terrorist received any support.

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