The custody of the relative of the assailant implicated in the attack perpetrated on Saturday evening near the Eiffel Tower in Paris was lifted on the night of Tuesday 5 to Wednesday 6 December, declared the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) at Agence France-Presse. Police custody was lifted “without prosecution at this stage”, the same source said. This measure “was no longer necessary for the ongoing investigations, there was no evidence against him likely to constitute a criminal offense”.
According to a source close to the matter, this 27-year-old woman “belongs to the jihadist sphere” and had received a recent marriage proposal from the Franco-Iranian Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, as revealed by certain media. The assailant, aged 26, had “seen her the day before” of his attack, according to a source close to the investigation.
The author of the attack must be presented to an anti-terrorism judge on Wednesday for indictment, according to the latter source. This man known to the intelligence services for his radical Islamism and his psychiatric disorders said he acted in “reaction to the persecution of Muslims around the world”. He appeared before the police “very cold”, “clinical”, “disembodied”, according to the source close to the investigation.
Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab was arrested just after the attack which caused the death of a 23-year-old German-Filipino tourist and injured two other people on Saturday evening not far from the Eiffel Tower, a few months before the Olympic Games in the capital city. The government is under pressure after this attack, which occurred after that in mid-October in Arras (Pas-de-Calais), which cost the life of a teacher and led to the Vigipirate plan being raised to the maximum “emergency attack” level.
Since Saturday, the medical monitoring of the assailant has raised questions and criticism. Anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard reported on Sunday evening that the attacker, listed for Islamist radicalization, was “subject to a treatment order involving tight psychiatric monitoring and controlled by a coordinating doctor” until the end of the arrest. the ordeal, on April 26, 2023, after a new psychiatric assessment.