Accused of having mowed three cars at the wheel of a car on Monday in Colombes in the Hauts-de-Seine, Youssef T. was indicted and imprisoned Friday, May 1 for "attempted assassinations on anyone depositary of authority public in connection with a terrorist enterprise, "the national counterterrorism prosecutor's office told AFP.

According to concordant sources, this 29 year old Frenchman animated by an anti-Western ideology and having made allegiance to the group Islamic State assumes "completely his act" which seriously wounded two police officers and which he would have committed alone.

After the end of his police custody and his referral to the prosecution on Friday morning, an investigating judge indicted Youssef T. in the afternoon before he was placed in pre-trial detention, in accordance with the prosecution's requisitions National Counter-Terrorism (Pnat).

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At around 5 p.m. on Monday, a man unknown to the anti-terrorist services, driving a BMW, violently struck two bikers of the national police who were controlling a car, seriously injuring their legs, and more lightly hit a municipal police officer. The two bikers had to be hospitalized but their lives are not in danger.

A letter of allegiance to the Islamic State organization and a knife were found in the suspect's car and the Pnat seized the facts on Tuesday after a psychiatric expert examination ruled out any abolition or impairment of his judgment.

"Impose sharia on the whole Earth"

According to a statement from the prosecution, the suspect said he wanted to go "head on in the battle to impose sharia on the whole Earth".

According to a source close to the investigation, we find in "the exploitation of its digital media" seized during a search "an interest in [the group] Islamic State as well as terrorism in general."

According to another source close to the investigation, "this is not an unbalanced profile" but that of someone "very lonely" who "fully assumes his act" and considers himself a "warrior" who avoids target "civilians".

"It has been focused on anti-Western discourse for ten or twelve years. It follows geopolitical subjects. It is not of a high intellectual level but it follows the situation in Palestine, in the Sahel," added this source.

"Not on file S"

"As it stands, he seems to have acted alone," according to one of these sources. The preliminary investigation had also been opened for "association of terrorist criminals", which suggested possible accomplices, but this count has not yet been retained in the judicial information.

Known for "old common law facts", Youssef T. had been the subject of a recall to the law for contempt of agent in 2014, according to the prosecutor of Nanterre Catherine Denis, who carried out the first investigations before the referral of the Pnat. 

The man was "not on file S" for radicalization, according to the anti-terrorist prosecution. A man "calm" and without "problem", said his neighbors to AFP.

The investigations are coordinated by the criminal brigade, with the support of the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI).

His lawyer, Me Fares Aidel, "does not wish to speak, (his) client reserving his answers to the judiciary", but described as "erroneous" his "alleged desire to go to Syria in the past" mentioned by a source close to the investigation and by some media.

After the dissemination on social networks of photos of the suspect in police custody, counsel for Youssef T. also told AFP that he had filed a complaint with the Nanterre prosecution for violating the secrecy of the investigation, the right to presumption of innocence and the right to respect for private life.

With AFP

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