A former roommate of the main suspect in the chopper attack in Paris on Friday, in front of the former premises of Charlie Hebdo, was taken into police custody overnight from Friday to Saturday
This is what a judicial source told AFP.
The main suspect, arrested by the police in Place de la Bastille shortly after the attack which left two seriously injured, is a man born in Pakistan and aged 18, who arrived in France when he was still a minor three years ago.
On the other hand, the custody of a second suspect, a 33-year-old Algerian, was lifted during the night, because this man who was near the place of the attack was put “out of the question”. this judicial source clarified.
According to a source familiar with the matter, his account, which consists of saying that he was a witness, pursued the author and was subsequently threatened, was corroborated by the investigation.
This keeps the number of police custody in progress on Saturday morning at seven, including five men who were in one of the presumed homes of the main suspect, in Pantin near Paris.
Two presumed homes of the main suspect were searched, in Cergy and Pantin, in the Paris suburbs.
The attack on Friday came amidst the trial of the murderous attack that targeted the satirical weekly in January 2015.
The anti-terrorism justice has taken up the case which has revived in France the painful memory of the year 2015, marked in particular by the January attacks against Charlie Hebdo, and those, even more deadly, of November 13 in Paris.
“Obviously it is an act of Islamist terrorism”, estimated the French Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, on the France 2 channel, deploring “a new bloody attack against our country”.
The editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo was the subject of new threats since this weekly had again published cartoons of Muhammad on September 2, for the opening of the trial, scheduled to last until November 10.
An unprecedented wave of jihadist attacks began in 2015 in France and left 258 dead. Several of these attacks were perpetrated with knives, in particular at the Paris police headquarters in October 2019 or in Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme) last April.