A French farmer who was attacked by a knife-wielding man yelling “Allahu Ackbar” has complained that the prosecution in the case has not treated the crime as terrorism despite the attacker also being on France’s terror watch list.
Yves Boussuge, 58, who lives in the small French village of Laroque-Timbaut, was attacked on June 18th 2017 after driving down a country road in his tractor by a man who was already under house arrest for Islamic radicalisation, Le Parisien reports.
The incident occurred at around 9 p.m. when Kamel Belbakkal was out on his moped, despite having been put under house arrest in 2016 for his allegiance to the Islamic State terror group.
The Islamic State supporter, annoyed at the tractor kicking up dust, confronted Mr Boussage and another man he was with at the time.
The radical began an argument with the two Frenchmen that escalated into violence and pulled out a knife described as being around 25 cm long and stabbed Boussuge in the forearm while yelling “Allahu Ackbar!”
“I still remember hatred in my abuser’s gaze. Not a day goes by without my thinking about it with my arm pain,” Boussuge said.
After the farmer collapsed onto his back, the radical Islamist hit him again in the knee before his companion was able to pull him away and the attacker then fled, only to be arrested the following day.
When Boussuge asked if the case would be treated as terrorism, the prosecutor told him it would not qualify.
“It’s distressing!” he said. “If it had happened in Paris or if I was a policeman… [it would have been labelled terrorism].”
Radical Islamist Kamel Belbakkal is just one of the thousands of others on the French terror watchlist known as the “S-File.”
Earlier this year President Emmanuel Macron promised to give local governments more access to S-File information in order to keep better observation of those on the list, after claims that French intelligence agencies simply lack the manpower to observe every S-File member.