Rambouillet attack: three people in custody, the blurred profile of the assailant
Three people were taken into custody and the police carried out operations at the home of the assailant who stabbed an administrative officer at the Rambouillet police station, near Paris, on April 23, 2021. Bertrand GUAY AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
"
We will not let this happen,
" Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Saturday April 24 after the knife attack which caused the death on Friday of a 49-year-old administrative officer from the Rambouillet police station near Paris.
The assailant was shot.
The Yvelines department is again struck by terrorism after the assassination of two police officers at their home in Magnanville in 2016, then the beheading of the teacher Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Hornorine last October.
The national anti-terrorist prosecution took up the investigations.
Publicity
Read more
With
Laura Martel,
from the France service of RFI
Investigators are currently trying to find out more about the profile of the attacker.
Three members of his entourage, including the man who had welcomed him on his arrival in France, were taken into custody this Friday evening, after police operations carried out at his home in Rambouillet and at his former landlord in the Val de Marne.
Documents and computer equipment were seized for exploitation.
The objective of the judicial police and the general direction of the intelligence services is also to retrace the course of this man since his arrival in France, to determine how he prepared his act, if he was helped or encouraged and if he was in contact with members of the jihadist sphere.
Operating mode
For the moment, the assailant has been identified as Jamel G., a 36-year-old Tunisian who irregularly entered France in 2009 but had held a residence permit since last December.
If the motivations of the thirty-something, unknown to the intelligence services, remain to be established, several elements have pushed the anti-terrorist prosecution to take up the case.
In particular the profile of the suspect and his modus operandi: a knife attack against the police.
The man would also have carried out a "location" before attacking the victim, which would accredit the premeditation, according to the prosecutor.
And he would have been heard shouting "
Allah akbar
", reports a source close to the investigation.
"
The Republic under attack
"
On the sidelines of a trip to Toulouse in the South West this Saturday, Jean Castex returned to the death of this police official.
The Prime Minister promises a response: "
It is again the Republic which is attacked, it is again the State which is challenged.
And I want to reiterate that we will not let this happen.
"
Jean Castex will shorten his trip to Occitania.
The head of government will go to the Toulouse central police station, before returning to Paris for a meeting with the departments and ministers concerned on the "
follow-up to be given
" to this deadly attack.
►
See also: Rambouillet attack: Emmanuel Macron caught up with Islamist terrorism
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
France
Terrorism
On the same subject
Rambouillet attack: Emmanuel Macron caught up with Islamist terrorism
Policewoman killed in knife attack at Rambouillet police station
Assassination of Samuel Paty: four other college students indicted