• Attack: A convert kills four people inside the Paris Police Headquarters

French investigators have found in the house of Mickaël Harpon, the police officer who killed four officers in the Paris Police Prefecture last Thursday before being killed by another colleague, a USB to store computer data with names of dozens of his companions and propaganda videos of the Islamic State, according to police sources cited by the France 2 television network. The USB key would contain decapitation vines, according to the BFMTV network.

The murderer, 45 years old and born in Martinique , worked since 2003 as a computer scientist in the intelligence direction of the Paris Police Prefecture, located in the heart of the French capital, near the Notre Dame Cathedral .

For now, it is unknown how long the murderer had been preparing the attack, how long had the USB in his possession with the data of his fellow police and if he would have shared them with someone. Nor is it known if before the attack he would have transmitted some kind of sensitive information to potential terrorists.

The fact that Harpon had in his possession data of his colleagues worries police unions. Philippe Capon , general secretary of UNSA Police, considers it "urgent" that the French Interior Ministry informs them about the type of data to which the attacker had access. "He was a very good computer scientist. I may have had access to a significant number of classified data, for example, about infiltrated agents . And this can be very dangerous," the trade unionist warned Monday.

Harpon attacked on October 3 for reasons unknown to a kitchen knife to several agents. The murderer died after being killed by a young policeman who was in practice.

The attacker, who was deaf and complained that he could not rise to the police because of his disability, had converted to Islam .

Although initially the French authorities said that Harpon had not shown any signs of radicalization, little by little worrying details are known. The killer had been in contact with Salafist circles for a few months and had allegedly justified in front of a colleague the attacks of the French satirical weekly 'Charlie Hebdo' in 2015, in which 12 people died and 11 were injured. Despite this, the alert alarms had not sounded within the police.

The French national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office took on Friday the investigation of the attack for "murder and attempted murder of a representative of the public authority, with a terrorist objective", as well as for "association of criminal terrorist criminals".

Paris will pay tribute tomorrow Tuesday to the four victims of the attack, who will receive the Legion of Honor posthumously in an act in which President Emmanuel Macron and Interior Minister Christophe Castaner will participate. The 24-year-old police officer who killed Harpon, whose identity has not been made public, will also receive the Legion of Honor at a later date.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Paris
  • Charlie Hebdo
  • Notre Dame
  • Islam
  • Islamic State

FRANCE The French Interior Minister acknowledges failures in the attack by the Paris Police Headquarters

FranceThe murderer of the four policemen in Paris was "a radical Islamist in contact with the Salafists"

The secret offer of Kiko Jiménez, from GH, to the Marbella police to withdraw the complaint