Home » News » The National Counter-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office seizes the investigation into the knife attack in Villejuif

The National Counter-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office seizes the investigation into the knife attack in Villejuif


Police secure the area where the knife attack, which left one person dead and two injured, in Villejuif on January 3. CHARLES PLATIAU / REUTERS

The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) announced on Saturday January 4 that it will take over the investigation into the knife attack in Villejuif, in the Val-de-Marne region, in which one person died and two others were injured . It had been perpetrated the day before by a young man suffering from psychiatric disorders and converted to Islam.

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“If the significant psychiatric disturbances of the perpetrator are proven, the investigations of the last hours have allowed to establish a certain radicalization of the accused and an organized preparation for his taking action”, thus argued PNAT in a press release. The first elements of the investigation also “Demonstrated a thoughtful and selective murderous path likely to seriously disturb public order by intimidation or terror”.

These elements justify the continuation of the investigations of the counts of “assassination and attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise” and of “criminal terrorist criminal association”. They were entrusted to the regional direction of the judicial police of Paris, initially in charge of the file, and to the general direction of internal security (DGSI).

“Salafist” works and “testamentary” letter

Nathan C., 22, who stabbed passers-by on Friday in a park in Villejuif, led his attack with shouts of ” Allahu Akbar ” (“God is great”), Laure Beccuau, the public prosecutor of Créteil, said on Saturday at a press conference. The young man carried out this attack with a “Extreme violence” with a “Extreme determination”, according to Mme Beccuau. He was shot dead by the police, who repeatedly asked him to throw away his knife, she added.

Investigators seek in particular to understand ” the nature of [la] radicalization “ of Nathan C., who converted to Islam in “May or July 2017” and suffered from serious psychiatric disorders since childhood. He was hospitalized several times and left his last facility in May before discontinuing the prescribed treatment in June.

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In a bag found on the spot, the police notably discovered works qualified as “Salafists”, as well as a “Testamentary letter with repetitions that are fairly characteristic of the self-deflaving Muslim who knows he may be taking the plunge”, explained to the press Philippe Bugeaud, deputy director of the judicial police of Paris. The apartment he occupied in the capital also had “All the signs of an apartment that was no longer going to be occupied”, according to prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

According to the testimonies collected by the investigators, Nathan C. had first spared a first person, who had told him of his Muslim faith and had told him “Recited a prayer in Arabic”, detailed Mme Beccuau. The young man then attacked a couple, fatally wounding the man in the heart and seriously injuring his wife in the neck. He then injured a jogger in the back. The two injured women were discharged from the hospital.

The World with AFP

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