Nine people in police custody and a possible video of claim under study: more than 48 hours after the chopper attack in Paris, the anti-terrorism investigation continued on Sunday around the route of the main suspect who admitted to wanting to take to Charlie Hebdo.

At the heart of the investigation, the identity of the one that the national anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard described on Friday as the "main author" of the attack which left two seriously injured in front of the former premises of Charlie Hebdo: this man introduces himself as Hassan A., aged 18, born in Mandi Bahauddin, a farming town in Punjab, Pakistan.

"No sign of radicalization"

Unknown to specialized services under this identity, the man "speaks a little French, but has a translator in Urdu", according to a source close to the investigation.

His police custody, which began at noon on Friday following his arrest by the police at Place de la Bastille in Paris, was extended by 48 hours on Sunday by a judge of freedoms and detention, according to a judicial source.

Hassan A.'s identity corresponds to that of a young man who entered France, still a minor, three years ago.

Supported by social assistance to children in Val-d'Oise until his majority last August, he showed "no sign of radicalization", according to the departmental council.

From a source close to the investigation, Hassan A. was considering embarking on training in building trades.

Two of the presumed homes of this man presented as "itinerant" were searched Friday, a social hotel located in Cergy (Val-d'Oise) and a two-room apartment in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), furnished with several bunk beds .

Materials (computers, telephones) were seized.

Described as "very polite" to AFP by Josiane, a neighbor, he was the subject of a reminder of the law in June for carrying a bladed weapon.

Another central question for the investigators: the motive of this attack.

In the midst of the murderous attack of January 2015 against the satirical weekly, the man "assumes his act" which targeted Charlie Hebdo, explain sources close to the investigation.

The suspect believed that the weekly was still in the premises of the 11th arrondissement, according to one of these sources, for whom this attack took place "in the context of the republication of the cartoons (of the Prophet Muhammad, editor's note) that he did not 'did not support ".

Investigators are interested in a video being authenticated, an element revealed on Saturday by the weekly Le Point.

"We see him crying, singing, he accepts his gesture in anticipation (...), it is a kind of manifesto, he announces his passage to the act, but it is not an allegiance to an organization ", according to the same source.

Over the weekend, a two-minute video circulated on social media, appearing to fit this description: a man introduces himself as "Zaheer Hassan Mehmood" and declares himself "moved" by "cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed who have been made ".

"Today, Friday September 25, I will condemn them", he adds, claiming to have for "guide" Mullah Ilyas Qadri, leader of Dawat-e-Islami, an apolitical and non-violent religious group Sufi-inspired, based in Pakistan.

The entourage in custody

Finally, as always in this type of investigation, the anti-terrorism services check the entourage of the main suspect.

On Sunday, nine police custody were still in progress: the man posing as Hassan A., six former roommates of his apartment in Pantin, his little brother and an acquaintance.

Two police custody have already been lifted.

As of Friday evening, a man initially considered as suspect, "Youssef", Algerian of 33 years, had been released.

Described as a "hero" by his lawyer, he had tried to stop the attacker with a knife - which the investigation corroborated.

With these custody, it is a question of understanding "the environment" of the suspect, according to the source close to the file, "because" everything suggests that he acted alone ".

On Sunday, the former Secretary of State for the Interior Laurent Nuñez, who became head of the Elysée's anti-terrorism "task force", said in an interview with AFP that "we are improving detection" in this area. but "it is necessary to tighten still the mesh of the net".

The current Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, estimated Sunday that the French and their leaders had "perhaps (...) collectively" evacuated the threat of "Islamic terrorism" and that it was theirs " recall reality ", during a visit to a synagogue in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

For the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti, speaking on France 2 on Saturday evening, "there is very structured terrorism [that the services] monitor very closely [...] and then there is this terrorism".

For the former lawyer, "low cost terrorism is your neighbor to whom you say hello every day, who looks like Mr. Everybody and who takes action, without has a certain number of external elements allowing to think that it will pass to the act ".

With AFP

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