The custody of the alleged shooter was lifted on Saturday due to a state of health incompatible with this measure, which is slowing down the ongoing investigation.
Investigators are continuing their investigations on Sunday into the assassination of three Kurds on Friday in Paris despite the lifting, for health reasons, of the custody of the alleged shooter arrested just after the facts. The suspect’s state of health was indeed deemed incompatible on Saturday evening “with the custody measure”.
The man was taken “to the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters”, explained the prosecution, which slows down the investigation. The suspect, a 69-year-old retired train driver of French nationality, said when he was arrested that he acted because he was “racist”, but it is still unclear whether he specifically attacked the Kurdish community.
Custody could resume
His police custody was “lifted pending his presentation before an investigating judge when his state of health allows it”, said the prosecution. The man must indeed be examined today at the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters. Two scenarios are then possible.
If the psychiatrists consider that the suspect’s condition is still incompatible with a coercive measure such as police custody, he may be hospitalized. It is then the prefect of police who gives his authorization, on medical advice. In this case, the investigation could be greatly slowed down, and for a while.
On the other hand, if the experts consider that his condition is again compatible with a police custody measure, it can resume where the investigators left it with the remaining hours. The prosecution has planned to communicate “in the morning” on this subject.
Added racist motivation
On Saturday, the Paris prosecutor’s office added “the racist motive of the facts” to the investigation opened for assassinations, attempted assassinations, violence with a weapon and violations of the legislation on weapons.
Based on the first elements of the investigation and the statements of the sexagenarian, the prosecution considered that the facts had been committed “because of the membership or non-membership, real or supposed, of the victims to an alleged race , ethnic group, nation or specific religion”.
“The addition of this circumstance does not modify the maximum penalty incurred, which remains life imprisonment,” said the public prosecutor.
The term attack is however not retained for the moment. For this, “the investigators must be able to prove a link with a form of radicalization”, explains on our antenna Abdoulaye Kanté, policeman in the Hauts-de-Seine, “all this must be verified”.
