Paris: Stabbing suspect was targeting Charlie Hebdo

A man suspected of injuring two people with a meat cleaver in Paris. He has admitted to deliberately targeting the former offices of the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine. The suspect reportedly linked his actions to the magazine’s recent republication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Charlie Hebdo did this as a trial over the 2015 Islamist attack on the magazine which killed 12 people began. The magazine’s location is now secret. The building in the French capital’s 11th district which used to house Charlie Hebdo’s offices. That building is now in use of a television production company.

But the attacker apparently believed the magazine’s offices were still there. A source close to the investigation were telling the local news agency, different sources are confirming this. The two victims of Friday’s attack are not officially named. But police said they were a man and a woman who was working at the production company.

Prime Minister Jean Castex told reporters at the scene that their lives were not in danger.

Suspect took responsibility

The suspect, who was arrested not far from the scene on Friday. He had “taken responsibility for his action”, according to sources. The suspect said, “his actions in the context of the republication of the cartoons”. According to the French Interior Minister, the teenager arrived in the country three years ago “as an isolated minor”.

Eight other people are in police custody over the attack, including a former flatmate of the main suspect. But a 33-year-old Algerian man detained on Friday was released after cleared of any involvement, according to sources. The unnamed man’s lawyer told the local news agency that her client had actually tried to stop the attacker and should be regarded as a “hero”.

Mr. Darmanin said the attack was “clearly an act of Islamist terrorism” and police had underestimated the threat level in the area. He said he had ordered security to be stepped up around synagogues this weekend for Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

How did the attack happened ?

Colleagues of the victims said they had been outside the Premieres local news production agency smoking a cigarette when they were attacked. The firm has offices in Rue Nicolas Appert, a street off Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. A mural honoring those killed in the January 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo is nearby.

“I went to the window and saw a colleague, bloodied, a man with a machete chasing my colleague,” one employee, who asked not to be named, said. “They were both very badly wounded,” Paul Moreira, the founder, and co-head of Premieres according to local news TV. Police quickly sealed off the area and a large blade was recovered nearby.

Later the arrest carried out in the vicinity and during a search of property north of Paris. Its believed to be the main suspect’s home. In a tweet, Charlie Hebdo expressed its “support and solidarity with its former neighbors and the people affected by this odious attack”.

What about the new trial and republication of the cartoons?

Fourteen people went on trial earlier this month accused of helping two jihadists carry out the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people in and around the magazine’s offices, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists. The defendants accused also helped another jihadist carry out related attacks in Paris, killing five people, including a police officer.

17 victims killed over a period of three days. Police killed all three attackers.
The killings saw the beginning of a wave of jihadist attacks across France that left more than 250 people dead. The magazine’s head of human resources said earlier this week that she had moved out of her home after receiving death threats.

Charlie Hebdo marked the start of the trial by reprinting its controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The original cartoons had sparked anger and protests in several Muslim-majority countries.
In response to the reprinting, the militant group al-Qaeda – which claimed the 2015 attack – renewed its threat against the magazine.