By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
PARIS (Worthy News) – French authorities confirmed Sunday that a radical Islamist with mental health troubles stabbed a German tourist to death and wounded two people in central Paris before being arrested.
The attack in the capital occurred near the famed Eiffel Tower during a busy weekend night while France was on high alert for terrorism amid heightened tensions due to the war between Israel and Hamas.
Prosecutor Jean-François Ricard said the alleged attacker had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, known for carrying out horrific terror acts.
The suspect was named by local media as Armand R, a 26-year-old French national born in France to Iranian parents.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters at the scene near the River Seine that the man had shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is greatest”) before being detained.
However, “We will not give in to terrorism,” French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, after the violence. French President Emmanuel Macron said he was sending his condolences to the family of the German killed in the “terrorist attack.”
GERMAN NURSE
Earlier, it was revealed that the victim killed in Saturday night’s attack was a German tourist who worked as a nurse.
France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the murdered man was with his wife when he was attacked and fatally stabbed on Quai de Grenelle.
He stressed that “the intervention of a taxi driver” saved the wife’s life and that the suspect fled across a nearby bridge spanning the River Seine.
After crossing to the north side of the river, he reportedly attacked two more people, hitting a 66-year-old British victim in the eye with a hammer. Police then tasered the suspect.
He was arrested on suspicion of assassination – defined in French law as premeditated murder – and “attempted assassination in relation to a terrorist enterprise,” authorities said.
Video published online appeared to confirm
that the suspect was apprehended by armed police not far from where the terror attack happened.
TWO INJURED
The two people injured – a Frenchman aged around 60 and a British tourist – were treated by emergency services, with neither found to be in a life-threatening condition, officials said.
On Sunday, Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau told French media the pair are “in good health.”
Yet authorities were due to face tough questions after police revealed that the suspect was released from prison in 2020 after serving four years for planning an attack.
He was supposed to be following treatment for psychiatric problems but was apparently not adequately monitored by law enforcement and other institutions.
The violence was also due to raise anxiety across European nations that joined France in preparing for possible terror attacks.
French anti-terror prosecutors said they are now taking on the investigation.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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