AFP :
A knife-wielding man ran amok Friday in a park south of Paris, killing a man walking with his wife and wounding two other people before being shot dead by police, officials said.
The Paris police department said the man, identified as 22-year-old Nathan C., attacked “several
people” around lunchtime in the suburb of Villejuif. Some managed to evade him but the man claimed at least one life-that of a 56-year-old Villejuif resident, according to the town’s mayor Franck Le Bohellec.
The victim “was walking with his wife when the attacker approached; he wanted to protect his wife” and was stabbed, the mayor explained.
According to a source close to the enquiry, another man was seriously wounded and a woman sustained light injuries.
The assailant then fled to the neighbouring suburb of Hay-les-Roses, where he was shot dead by police.
A picture sent to AFP showed a man in a long black garment lying on his back at an intersection.
“We heard screams, then we heard three shots,” said Rouane Yazid, 40, the owner of a garage nearby.
“I went outside to see. Then there were five or six more shots and then sirens. We barricaded ourselves in the garage,” he told AFP. Several sources said Nathan C. suffered from “psychological problems.”
He was not being tracked as a religious zealot, although “elements linked to religion” that “suggested he had converted to Islam,” were found among his personal effects, the local prosecutor’s office said.
The police have opened an investigation of murder and attempted murder.
The attack came just four days before France marks the fifth anniversary of the killing of 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris by two brothers vowing allegiance to Al-Qaeda.
A knife-wielding man ran amok Friday in a park south of Paris, killing a man walking with his wife and wounding two other people before being shot dead by police, officials said.
The Paris police department said the man, identified as 22-year-old Nathan C., attacked “several
people” around lunchtime in the suburb of Villejuif. Some managed to evade him but the man claimed at least one life-that of a 56-year-old Villejuif resident, according to the town’s mayor Franck Le Bohellec.
The victim “was walking with his wife when the attacker approached; he wanted to protect his wife” and was stabbed, the mayor explained.
According to a source close to the enquiry, another man was seriously wounded and a woman sustained light injuries.
The assailant then fled to the neighbouring suburb of Hay-les-Roses, where he was shot dead by police.
A picture sent to AFP showed a man in a long black garment lying on his back at an intersection.
“We heard screams, then we heard three shots,” said Rouane Yazid, 40, the owner of a garage nearby.
“I went outside to see. Then there were five or six more shots and then sirens. We barricaded ourselves in the garage,” he told AFP. Several sources said Nathan C. suffered from “psychological problems.”
He was not being tracked as a religious zealot, although “elements linked to religion” that “suggested he had converted to Islam,” were found among his personal effects, the local prosecutor’s office said.
The police have opened an investigation of murder and attempted murder.
The attack came just four days before France marks the fifth anniversary of the killing of 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris by two brothers vowing allegiance to Al-Qaeda.
