Silhouette blurred on a bike, captured by CCTV cameras, it is now in the hands of investigators. Mohamed Hichem M., a 24-year-old Algerian, is suspected of being the person who laid a parcel bomb on Friday near a bakery in downtown Lyon, and whose explosion caused 13 injuries. He was arrested on Monday and taken into custody, along with his two parents and a third family member. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told CNews on Tuesday that he had "no doubt" that the suspect was "the person in charge" of the attack.
The Interior Minister's assertions about the suspect's guilt are based on items found during the search of his family home on Monday. The investigators of the antiterrorist sub-department found remains of chemical components in the composition of the TATP, the explosive material that made the bomb, reveals Le Point . According to information from the weekly, which Europe 1 has confirmed, batteries of the same type as those collected at the scene of the explosion have also been found. Above all, the DNA isolated on the explosive device would indeed correspond to that of the suspect. Moreover, no connection with radical Islam was discovered during this search.
Why does his profile intrigue investigators?
Mohamed Hichem M. was born in Oran in 1995, according to Le Parisien . After obtaining a degree in computer science in Algeria, he would have joined in 2017 his family settled near Lyon. "He had short-stay visas and then applied for a student visa to get into a school, he did not have a student visa," detailed Christophe Castaner without confirming the nationality of the suspect.
He would first consider medical studies before turning to computer science, says the daily newspaper. What explain the complexity of the explosive device used Friday. "From the beginning, there was a strange character between the disproportion of a very efficient technical process and a very low explosive volume.There are real inconsistencies in this issue," said the Minister of the Interior.
In parallel with his studies, the young man also worked as a supervisor at the Lycée Ampère de Lyon. At the Parisian school , a student in the school describes this small and bearded young man as "a very kind supervisor, close to students, who laughed easily". Until now, he was completely unknown to the police.
Above all, the calm displayed by the suspect since his arrest is baffling. "In custody, he speaks little for the moment," slipped a source porch of the investigation to the Parisian . After the explosion on Friday, he probably did not seek to escape despite the prosecutions he was subjected to. It appears abundantly on the video surveillance images captured over the weekend, close to the neighborhood where the attack took place and with the same bike.
How was he apprehended?
It is the same system of video surveillance, whose images of Friday have been watched for long hours by agents Lyonnais - the recordings of 200 cameras installed in the 2nd district of the capital of Gaul - which is at the same time. The origin of the identification of Mohamed Hichem M. These images, excellent definition by contribution to photos published in the press, allowed them to accurately trace the course of the suspect.
"He had an electric bike and, as he had a good pedal stroke, he was very fast in front of our cameras, our observers were able to notice that it was the same man every time," explains Europe 1 Jean-Yves Sécheresse, the security assistant. The agents of the video-surveillance thus established that it had taken the direction of La Mulatière, which directed the steps of the technical and scientific police towards this city of the south of Lyon, where the suspect lived with his parents. He was arrested Monday morning on the descent of a bus, in the 7th district of Lyon.