Kurds killed in Paris: what we know three days after the shooting

Europe 1 with AFP 9:28 a.m., December 26, 2022, modified at 9:32 a.m., December 26, 2022

Three Kurds, two men and a woman, were shot dead and three others injured on Friday in Paris by a man who admitted to investigators "a pathological hatred" towards foreigners, according to Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

The custody of the suspect, suspended Saturday for health reasons, resumed Sunday afternoon for his presentation Monday before an investigating judge.

What happened ?

Early Friday morning, the suspect went to Saint-Denis "to commit murders on foreign people", according to the prosecutor.

For lack of people and unable to easily reload his weapon "because of his clothing", he gives up his project.

He returns home to his parents, in the center of the capital, then walks on rue d'Enghien, towards the Kurdish cultural center Ahmet Kaya, whose location he knows.

Shortly before noon, he opened fire on three people in front of the center.

A man and a woman are killed instantly.

The second man takes refuge in the Kurdish restaurant opposite before succumbing.

The shooter then goes to a barbershop where he wounds three other men.

Finally overpowered and disarmed by one of the victims, he was handcuffed by the police and then taken into custody.

On him, four magazines containing a total of 14 ammunition, a box of 25 ammunition and a bag containing a glove were found.

The weapon, acquired four years ago from a member of his gun club who is now deceased, is a 'worn-looking' US Army '1911 Colt 45', according to a source close to the case.

The alleged perpetrator

The suspect is a 69-year-old retired train driver of French nationality who lived with his parents in Paris.

To the police who arrested him, he said he acted because he was "racist", according to a source familiar with the matter.

On the morning of the incident, "he didn't say anything when he left (...) He's crazy. He's crazy," the 90-year-old suspect's father told AFP, describing him as "silent" and "withdrawn".

His relatives explained his "radical change in behavior" after a burglary of which he was the victim in February 2016, explained the Paris prosecutor.

The justice sentenced him last June to one year in prison for having seriously injured the burglars with a knife.

He appealed.

"I have always wanted to murder migrants, foreigners, since this burglary," said the suspect in police custody, describing himself as "depressive and suicidal".

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If his entourage "does not know him to have any particular interest in the situation of the Kurds", he explained to the investigators that they blame them for having "constituted prisoners during their fight against Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the jihadist organization State Islamic, editor's note) instead of killing them".

Among other criminal records, he was imprisoned in December 2021 after wounding two migrants with a saber and slashing several tents at a camp in Paris.

He was released on December 12 under judicial supervision, in accordance with the law.

The victims

Five of the six victims are of Turkish nationality, the sixth is of French nationality, according to the prosecution.

The woman killed, Emine Kara, was a leader of the Kurdish Women's Movement in France, according to the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F).

She had made a request for political asylum "rejected by the French authorities", said the spokesperson for the movement, Agit Polat.

The two deceased men are Abdurrahman Kizil, "an ordinary Kurdish citizen", and Mir Perwer, a Kurdish singer recognized as a political refugee and "prosecuted in Turkey for his art", according to the CDK-F.

The three injured victims are now out of danger.

Investigation

An investigation has been opened into the counts of assassinations, attempted assassinations, violence with a weapon and violations of the legislation on weapons, committed because of the belonging, real or supposed, of the victims to an alleged race, ethnicity, a specific nation or religion, the prosecution said.

The suspect, whose hearing was interrupted on Saturday evening to take him to the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters, returned to police custody on Sunday afternoon.

He will be presented to an examining magistrate on Monday for a possible indictment.

The search and exploitation of a computer and a telephone did not reveal "any link with an extremist ideology", underlined the prosecutor.

He is unknown to the files of territorial intelligence and the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Friday, also specifying that the suspect was not on the ultra-right.

In addition, a march is organized this Monday on the scene of the tragedy, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.