ROMANS-SUR-ISERE • French police have arrested three suspects in an expanding terror probe after a knife attack in the country's south-east left two people dead, investigators said yesterday.
The attack in broad daylight in the riverside town of Romans-sur-Isere last Saturday took place while France was on lockdown to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Prosecutors have launched an investigation into "murder linked to a terrorist enterprise" and "association with terrorist wrongdoers" after the rampage through several shops in the town with a population of 35,000.
Police have named a man said to be the assailant as Abdallah Ahmed-Osman - a Sudanese refugee in his 30s who lives in the town. He was arrested without a fight. He was found by police "on his knees on the pavement praying in Arabic" after the attack, said the national anti-terror prosecutor's office (PNAT).
According to witnesses cited by radio station France Bleu Drome Ardeche, the attacker shouted "Allah Akbar!" (God is Greatest) as he stabbed his victims.
"Anyone who had the misfortune to find themselves in his way were attacked," said town mayor Marie-Helene Thoraval .
Mr David Olivier Reverdy, who is from the National Police Alliance union, said Ahmed-Osman asked police to kill him when they came to arrest him.
Police later arrested a second Sudanese man at Ahmed-Osman's home - "an acquaintance" of the alleged attacker - and "a young Sudanese man from the same household", the anti-terror prosecutor's office said.
The assailant first went into a tobacco shop where he attacked the owner and his wife, the mayor said. He then went to a butcher shop where he seized another knife before heading to the town centre and attacking people outside a bakery.
"He took a knife, jumped over the counter and stabbed a customer, then ran away," butcher shop owner Ludovic Breyton told AFP. "My wife tried to help the victim but in vain."
Besides the two people killed, five were injured.
Ahmed-Osman obtained refugee status in France in June 2017, according to investigators. He was previously unknown to the police or intelligence services.
The initial investigation has "brought to light a determined, murderous course likely to seriously disturb public order through intimidation or terror", PNAT said.
It said that during a search of the suspect's home, "handwritten documents with religious connotations were found in which the author complains in particular that he lives in a country of non-believers".
According to a source close to the investigation, the alleged attacker had said "he did not remember what happened".
An initial interrogation was delayed as he was very agitated. A psychological evaluation was scheduled for yesterday.
President Emmanuel Macron has denounced the attack on Twitter as "an odious act which casts a shadow over our country which has already been hit hard in recent weeks".
France is in the third week of a national lockdown over Covid-19, with all but essential businesses shut and people confined to their homes.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
