The Paris public prosecutor’s office is investigating a Frenchman after the murder of three Kurds and does not rule out a racist motive. The 69-year-old faces life imprisonment. First, he is transferred to the Psychiatric Hospital of the Police Prefecture because of health problems.
After the act of violence that left three dead in a Kurdish neighborhood in Paris, the alleged perpetrator was released from police custody for health reasons and transferred to the psychiatric infirmary of the police prefecture. As the public prosecutor announced in the evening, after examining the accused, the responsible doctor said that his state of health was “not compatible with police custody”. The man should now be brought before an examining magistrate as soon as his condition permits.
A few hours earlier, the public prosecutor had announced that the 69-year-old was now being investigated for a possible racist motive. The French still face life imprisonment. The former train driver shot three people and injured three others near a Kurdish cultural center in Paris on Friday. He was taken into police custody at the scene and taken to hospital with minor injuries.
According to the Kurdish association CDK-F, the dead are Kurdish activists, including a young woman and a musician. The association accused the Turkish state and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being responsible for the crime. It was “unacceptable that the terrorist character is not taken into account,” spokesman Agit Polat told journalists on Friday evening. The political situation in Turkey with regard to the Kurdish movement is clearly causing his association to “assume that these are political murders,” said Polat at the press conference held just 100 meters from the scene of the bloody deed.
There was a riot on the sidelines of a demonstration by the Kurdish community in Paris. Cars were overturned, rubbish bins were set on fire. At the request of President Emmanuel Macron, a meeting between the police prefect of Paris and representatives of the Kurdish community was planned. The 90-year-old father of the alleged perpetrator told the AFP news agency that his son “didn’t say anything when leaving the house” on the morning of the crime. “He’s cracked up. He’s crazy.” His father described the 69-year-old as “taciturn” and “closed”.
