A man armed with a knife was arrested at a hospital in the Paris region after allegedly looking for the Nice terror attacker to kill him.
Hospital security stopped the man on Wednesday, finding a knife in his pocket. The suspect admitted he was looking for the 21-year-old Tunisian migrant, Brahim Aouissaoui, who killed three people in a Nice church last month, saying he wanted to “deliver justice” and kill him.
The man, who has not been identified, was later taken into police custody, with investigators saying they are still investigating his motives, La Depeche reports.
Aouissaoui has been in hospital since the terrorist attack, during which he almost beheaded one woman near the font of the church, killing another woman and a church sacristan. Police had shot the 21-year-old migrant during his arrest, seriously injuring him.
According to La Depeche, he remains in critical condition. In addition to his gunshot wounds, he also tested positive for the Wuhan virus. So far, he has been kept on ventilation and has not spoken with counter-terrorism investigators.
Since the Nice terror attack and the earlier beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, France has seen a surge in death threats and apologies for terrorism, a judicial source told French media earlier this week.
“It’s exploding! There are many threats against public figures, the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, several ministers, deputies, teachers,” the source said.
President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, has called for stricter regulations and reform of the European Union’s open-border Schengen agreement after it was revealed that Brahim Aouissaoui had come to Europe illegally after reaching the Italian island of Lampedusa by sea.
“We must not confuse the fight against illegal immigration with terrorism, but we must look clearly at the links between these two phenomena,” Macron said following a meeting in Paris with Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz this week.