The man suspected of having killed three Kurds in Paris admitted to investigators “a pathological hatred” towards foreigners. In his murderous plan, the suspect also planned to kill foreigners in Saint-Denis.
Since his arrest, the man suspected of having killed three Kurds on Friday morning in Paris has given many details about his criminal plan. During his police custody, interspersed with a visit to the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters because of his state of health, the 69-year-old former railway worker spoke of his racist motivations and explained the stages of his journey. murderer of December 23.
BFMTV.com provides an update on the progress of the investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office for assassinations and attempted assassinations.
• The aborted stage of Saint-Denis
On the day of the attack, the Kurdish cultural center was not the initial target of William M. According to his statements in police custody, he first went around 6:50 a.m. to Saint-Denis, armed an automatic pistol and numerous ammunition “to commit murders on foreign people”, reports the Paris prosecutor’s office in a press release.
Alone in deserted streets, the former railway worker gave up opening fire in Saint-Denis and then went to rue d’Enghien in Paris, knowing that the Kurdish cultural center was a meeting point for members of the community.
• The shooting in Paris motivated by “hatred of foreigners”
In the middle of the morning, Willam M. therefore opened fire successively on a woman and two men present in front of the Kurdish cultural center on rue d’Enghien, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. He continued his progress in the same street, wounding three other men – two Kurds and a Frenchman – by bullets.
“Controlled and disarmed by one of the victims, the sexagenarian was arrested at 11:40 a.m. in possession of his weapon, four magazines containing a total of 14 ammunition and a box of 25 ammunition”, specifies the Paris prosecutor’s office.
• Randomly chosen victims
In police custody, William M. explained that he attacked victims he did not know. He claimed not to have fixed the number of victims in advance, but clarified that he intended to use all the ammunition and kill himself with the last bullet.
The suspect added that he is angry “with all the migrants” since a burglary of which he was the victim in 2016. According to the public prosecutor of Paris, Laure Beccuau, William M. identifies this event as the trigger for a ” hatred of foreigners has become completely pathological”.
• A suspect with a depressive and suicidal profile…
The entourage of the respondent, who lives with his parents, describes him as depressed, silent, and lonely.
After the shooting, the only regret expressed by William M. is that he failed to kill himself, he told investigators. He wanted to “take his enemies to the grave”, specifying that by “enemies”, he meant “all non-European foreigners”, underlines the prosecution.
“I have always wanted to murder migrants, foreigners, since this burglary,” he told investigators, also specifying that he was “depressive” and “suicidal”.
• … And with a heavy criminal record
For several years, William M. has been in trouble with the law. He was indeed arrested in December 2021 for having attacked with a saber a migrant camp in the 12th arrondissement of the capital. Placed in pre-trial detention in the prison of Health, he was released on parole on December 12, pending a possible trial, the risk of recidivism having been deemed “limited”.
During this previous investigation, his psychiatric profile had already worried the justice system because of the racist remarks he made and of which he did not seem to measure the scope. A psychiatric expertise had been carried out “in an emergency” during his pre-trial detention: it did not retain a “dangerous state” of the respondent but concluded that he suffered from a “resent” towards foreigners.
William M. had also been sentenced for violence on June 30 in Bobigny, for having stabbed a burglar. He appealed against his conviction on July 8.
• The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office does not take
Since Friday, many political and militant voices have been rising for this shooting, against a backdrop of racism, to be legally qualified as a terrorist act. This Sunday evening, however, the investigation remains under the leadership of the Paris prosecutor’s office with a qualification of assassinations and attempted assassinations.
In her press release, Laure Beccuau justifies this choice by the fact that “no element allows at this stage to link him to a terrorist project. The search carried out at the parents’ home led to the discovery of a computer and a smartphones.
Their exploitation, including by way of telephone requisitions, revealed nothing. The documentation seized on this occasion does not reveal any link with an extremist ideology.
For Agit Polat, spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Council in France, this legal orientation resonates as an injustice: “One of the victims was an emblematic figure of Kurdish activists. We continue to think that it is an attack terrorist.”
