‘Act of terror’ leaves one dead, two injured in eastern France

A person died and two police officers were seriously injured on Saturday, February 22, in a knife attack in East France that President Emmanuel Macron said it was an “Islamist terrorist act.”

Prosecutors said three more officers were slightly injured in the attack in the city of Mulhouse, carried out by a 37 -year suspect who is on a list of observation of terror prevention and is now in custody, said prosecutor Nicolas Heitz.

Of the two seriously injured officers, one suffered an injury in the carotid artery and the other to the thorax, he added.

Interior Minister Bruno Retilleau, later said that the French authorities had made several attempts to extradite the suspect, but that his native Algeria had refused to accept it.

The National Unit of Anti-terrorist prosecutors of France (PNAT), which took over the investigation, said the suspect attacked the municipal police officers for the first time, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is bigger).

The witnesses confirmed to AFP that the suspect had shouted the words several times.

A civil passerby that intervened was fatally injured, said the PNAT in a statement. According to Mulhouse prosecutors, he was a 69 -year -old Portuguese citizen.

Macron said there was no “doubt” that the incident was “a terrorist act”, specifically “an Islamist terrorist act.”

The government was determined to continue doing “everything to eradicate terrorism in our soil,” Macron added.

Falling deportation

The terror surveillance list, called FSPRT, compiles data from several authorities in individuals with the aim of preventing “terrorist” radicalization.

It was released in 2015 after mortal attacks against the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and in a Jewish supermarket.

The Interior Minister was expected to travel to the attack scene later on Saturday.

The police established a security parameter after the attack that occurred shortly before 4 PM during a demonstration in support of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in an occupied part of Mulhouse, a city of around 110,000 inhabitants.

The military units were sent to the scene as support and forensic scientists sought evidence, working hurriedly to examine blood stains before the rain washed them.

The suspect was born in Algeria and has been under judicial supervision and house arrest, with an order of expulsion from France.

Retailleau told the French station TF1 that France had tried to expel him 10 times, and the Algerians refused to accept it every time.

“Once again, it is Islamist terrorism that has hit,” he said. And, once again, he added, migration problems were “at the origin of this terrorist act.”

PNAT anti -terrorist prosecutors said they were investigating the murder attack and tried to kill “in relation to a terrorist company.”

Macron, who spoke during a visit to the Agricultural Fair of France, said that the “solidarity of the nation” was with the victim of attack and his family.

Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said that “fanaticism has played again, and we are mourning.”