France ups security after Muslim attack on police
Print Edition
SECURITY was stepped up at police and fire stations across France yesterday after a knife-wielding French convert to Islam was shot dead after attacking three police officers.
Bertrand Nzohabonayo was killed Saturday after entering a police station in the central town of Joue-les-Tours armed with a knife, seriously wounding two officers — slashing one in the face — and hurting another.
“The investigation is leading towards an attack ... motivated by radical Islamist motives,” said a source close to the probe.
The assailant, a French national born in Burundi in 1994, cried “Allahu Akbar” — “God is great” — during the assault, added the source close to the probe, which is being carried out by anti-terror investigators from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Local prosecutor Jean-Luc Beck said investigators would seek to determine whether “he acted alone or if he acted on orders.”
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who rushed to the scene of the attack on Saturday, said he had ordered “security measures to be stepped up” for police personnel and firefighters across the country.
Nzohabonayo had previously committed petty offences but was not on a domestic intelligence watch-list although his brother is known for radical positions and once pondered going to Syria, the source said.
On Thursday, Nzohabonayo posted the Islamic State flag as his profile picture on a Facebook page identified as his by several experts on jihadist groups.
But paradoxically, he had also liked a page called “Islamic State in Iraq: Not in my name”, for Muslims that “refuse to be associated” with the violence waged by the radical group.
One of his former sports teachers said he was a quiet, reserved boy.
“When he arrived at the football club from the Paris region, he was around 16 or 17,” said the teacher, who asked not to named.
“He wanted to be the referee, which is unusual at that age. He was devoted to justice.”
Several people near his sister’s flat refused to believe the attack was spurred by radical Islamic motives.
“That’s not what our town is about,” said Ahmed Moussaoui, a retired man who heads up a local association.
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