PARIS // The Frenchman shot dead on Saturday by troops patrolling at Paris’ Orly airport after he tried to take one of their weapons told them he was “here to die for Allah”, a prosecutor said.
“Put your weapons down, hands on your head, I’m here to die for Allah. In any case people are going to die,” Ziyed Ben Belgacem told the troops, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins.
The prosecutor said the 39-year-old attacker had acted with “intentions that were very visibly criminal”.
His father, brother and a cousin have been detained, Mr Molins said.
Before attacking the soldier at the airport, Ben Belgacem “threw to the ground a backpack containing a can of petrol”, Mr Molins said, adding the man had in his pocket a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, €750 (Dh2,960) and a Quran.
“The two minutes [of confrontation] with the soldiers demonstrate quite clearly the very strong determination of the attacker,” Mr Molins said.
The incident comes as France remains on high alert following a series of extremist attacks that have claimed more than 230 lives since January 2015.
Flights were halted at Orly for several hours, with incoming flights diverted and thousands of passengers stranded at Paris’ second-largest airport, but normal service resumed mid-afternoon.
Before the airport incident on Saturday, Ben Belgacem had already shot at police and stolen a car in the suburbs of Paris.
He had several previous convictions for armed robbery and drug offences, among others, French officials said earlier.
His home was one of scores searched in 2015 in the aftermath of the suicide bomb and gun attacks which killed 130 people in Paris, the Paris prosecutors’ office said. He was suspected of having radical leanings but no incriminating evidence was found.
French interior minister Bruno Le Roux confirmed Ben Belgacem was “known to the police and the intelligence services”.
Police searched his house in Garges-les-Gonesse, a suburb in the ethnically mixed area of Seine-Saint-Denis in north-eastern Paris.
Belgacem was pulled over by police in Garges-les-Gonesse at around 6.55am on Saturday for driving too fast. He drew a gun and fired shots at the officers, slightly injuring one in the head, before fleeing.
He then continued south to steal another car in the suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine about 10 kilometres from Orly airport. In Vitry, he also “burst into a bar and threatened those present”, Mr Le Roux said.
At around 8.30am, he walked on to the departures floor of Orly-Sud terminal, where he tried to grab the rifle of a female officer who was on patrol with two others.
A senior military source said he knocked the soldier to the ground and tried to take her rifle from her. The two other soldiers then opened fire, killing him.No one else was injured in the melee.
Identity documents found on the attacker matched those presented by the man who fired at police in Garges-les-Gonesse. the stolen car was found at Orly.
Anti-terrorist prosecutors have taken over the investigation, indicating the authorities view terrorism as a possible motive.
France is still under a state of emergency after a series of terrorist attacks, including the November 2015 massacre in Paris which killed 130 people and the lorry which ploughed into the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice last July, killing 86.
Extremists have repeatedly targeted the security forces. In mid-February, a machete-wielding Egyptian attacked soldiers on patrol outside the Louvre museum in Paris, slightly injuring one of them, before being shot and wounded.
In June 2016 a man claiming allegiance to ISIL stabbed a police couple to death at their home near Paris.
Soldiers have also been the targets in several knife attacks.
Around 3,000 passengers were evacuated from Orly-Sud terminal, the scene of the attack, while elite police teams secured it and swept it for possible explosives. Those at the nearby Orly-Ouest terminal were confined to the building.
French president Francois Hollande said investigators would determine whether Belgacem “had a terrorist plot behind him”. The president ruled out any link between the attack and the forthcoming presidential election in April and May, but said it proved the need for military patrols at public sites and for France to remain “extremely vigilant.”
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
