He is a man of Syrian nationality identified as Abdalmasih H., born in 1991, the bomber arrested in Annecy, France, after the stabbing of several children and an adult in a city park. The man was not known to the French security services. The motive and identity of the attacker are being investigated and the local prosecutor is expected to provide further details at a press conference.
According to preliminary information, Abdalmasih H. entered French territory legally, he applied for asylum last November in France declaring himself “a Christian from Syria”, according to a police source cited by bfmtv. In April he was granted refugee status in Sweden, but an acquaintance told theAfp who left the country seven months ago. The man is married to a Swedish woman and is the father of a three-year-old boy, more or less the same as the little victims.
The attack took place around 9.30 this morning. The man, wearing black shorts and a blue scarf tied over his head, walked towards the strollers and attacked children in a play area. The attacker began to “jump”, “scream” and “directed towards the strollers, starting to rage “with the knife, repeatedly, on the children”, a witness told a The Parisian. “When he saw that he was surrounded by police, he walked towards a couple and went directly with the knife at a gentleman, who was there with his wife, and stabbed him.”
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An ice cream seller who works in the park where the attack took place said he had already seen the attacker in recent days as he looked around. According to the newspaper The Dauphine Libere, the aggressor had been visiting the park on the banks of the lake for at least two months. He spent his days sitting on a bench, dressed in black, with a black backpack, dark glasses, a beard. He had with him a small bottle with a yellow liquid. He didn’t speak but he didn’t look aggressive.
The mayor of Annecy, Francois Astorg, on Twitter asked the inhabitants to avoid going to the Paquier sector to allow the smooth running of the operations following the attack. “All my thoughts to the victims and families,” Astorg wrote. The four children stabbed are aged between 22 months and three years. According to a source familiar with the case, three of the victims, two children and one adult, are in danger of dying.