A third migrant has been arrested following a knife rampage in Romans-sur-Isère, France, believed to be terrorist in nature.
The suspected perpetrator, a Sudanese migrant named as Abdallah Ahmed-Osman, struck seven people in and around a tobacconist and butcher’s shop in the small French town, which like the rest of the country is subject to stringent anti-coronavirus lockdown measures.
Two of the victims died, and two more remain in critical care. Ahmed-Osman is in custody, having been found “on his knees on the pavement praying in Arabic” in the wake of the attack, according to anti-terror prosecutors.
Initial investigations have established that the migrant was set on a “determined, murderous course” to “seriously disturb public order through intimidation or terror,” according to prosecutors, who are also said to have found “handwritten documents with religious connotations… in which the author complains in particular that he lives in a country of non-believers”.
While Laurent Nunez, of the French interior ministry, has said that “to our knowledge [Ahmed-Osman] acted alone”, his roommate — also a Sudanese national — was detained by the authorities on Sunday, followed by another Sudanese nation — this one identified as an asylum seeker — later that same day.
Ahmed-Osman was himself granted refugee status in 2017.
This has caused anger among opposition politicians including national populist leader Marine Le Pen, who described the attack as “a horror” and said that France’s leaders would have to answer to the people for promoting what she described as an uncontrolled and unlimited immigration policy.
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