“I am flabbergasted. In high school, he smoked cigarettes, he drank beers. He loved to ride a motorcycle. He was a normal person. I do not understand. “On the phone, this former friend of Jamel G., the assailant who killed a police officer at the Rambouillet police station on Friday, before being shot by the police, couldn't get over it. Did his high school friend self-radicalize? Was he influenced by a bad encounter? “I hadn't heard from for two or three years. He no longer communicated and had isolated himself, ”adds this Tunisian caregiver. Who expresses his "immense sadness" for the family and relatives of the police officer.

Unknown to the intelligence services, Jamel G., 36, stabbed two fatal stab wounds to the throat of a police officer, Stéphanie, 49, around 2:20 p.m. in the entrance to the Rambouillet police station.

According to witnesses, he then shouted "Allah Akbar".

The national anti-terrorism prosecution (Pnat) seized it because of "the elements of identification", the quality of the victim - a police officer - and the "remarks made by the author during the realization of the facts", explained the prosecutor Jean-François Ricard.

Arrived in France in 2009

According to the anti-terrorist prosecution, the assailant, born in Tunisia, arrived in France in 2009. “In 2019 he had benefited from an exceptional authorization for salaried residence, then a residence permit in December 2020, valid until December 2021 ”, explained the Pnat. According to his former high school friend, Jamel G. is from Msaken, in the suburbs of Sousse, just like the author of the Nice ram truck attack, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. There is no evidence to suggest that the two men knew each other.

According to a Facebook profile that seems to be his and that

20 Minutes

was able to consult, Jamel G. had lived in Rambouillet, a quiet town of nearly 26,000 inhabitants, south-west of Paris, since 2015 and worked in the building industry. According to a relative of his family in Tunisia interviewed by AFP, he lived with his aunt and had at least two brothers, including a twin. Three people around him, including the man who welcomed him on his arrival in France, were taken into police custody late Friday afternoon, a systematic practice of anti-terrorism after each attack, which no 'does not necessarily lead to prosecution. The home of his landlord, located in Val-de-Marne, was searched, as was the home occupied by the murderer.

Support for France after the Bataclan but for Islam after the murder of Samuel Paty

To retrace his journey, the investigators interview relatives, but they can also rely on social networks.

When he started out on Facebook in 2010, Jamel G. sang karaoke, shared clips from Sexion d'Assaut and Orelsan and talked about the

NCIS

series

.

On November 15, 2015, two days after the November 13 attacks, he added a blue-white-red filter to his profile picture.

Then it is almost silence. But in 2018, Jamel G. began to post actively, often to attack Islamophobia and polemicist Eric Zemmour. On Facebook, he notably follows Marwan Muhammad, the former director of the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF). Then from April 2020, at the time of confinement, he only publishes pious prayers and Koranic verses. A few days after the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty by an Islamist in October 2020, he changed his profile picture and joined a campaign entitled “Respect Mohamed, prophet of God”.

The investigation, opened by the Pnat for "assassination of a person holding public authority in connection with a terrorist enterprise and terrorist criminal association", must also determine whether Jamel G. has received material or ideological support.

Otherwise, his attack would be part of the threat most feared by the services: those of "lone wolf", often unknown to intelligence, present on national territory and who, inspired by jihadist propaganda, commit attacks on the bladed weapon requiring little preparation.

Society

Police officer killed in Rambouillet: The scenario of the attack is emerging, three relatives of the assailant in custody

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