PARIS: A Malian national suspected of injuring several people at Paris’s Gare de Lyon railway station at the weekend was set to appear before a judge on Tuesday, prosecutors said.
The 32-year-old went on a stabbing spree early on Saturday morning at the station, which operates domestic trains as well as those heading to Switzerland and Italy. According to police, the suspect suffers from psychiatric problems.
During the attack, one person suffered life-threatening injuries to the abdomen while two others were lightly wounded.
One of the victims, a 66-year-old man, was still in a critical condition on Monday afternoon, according to the public prosecutor’s office.
The suspect stabbed the man in the abdomen and struck him twice on the head with a hammer, according to a police source.
Two other people, one 57, the other in their early 20s, were also injured when they intervened, the public prosecutor’s office said on Monday.
Officials said a further two other people were affected -- a young woman whose bag was set on fire by the attacker and a 44-security guard who also intervened.
The suspect had been a legal resident in Italy since 2016 and had travelled legally to France.
According to Italy’s Carabinieri police, until 2021 the suspect lived in a centre run by a Catholic association in the village of Montalto Dora, northeast of Turin.
The man had been monitored for psychiatric problems but never showed any violent tendencies, they told AFP.
Officials said a TikTok account showing a black man with glasses, a beard and short hair had been opened in the name of the attacker.
In a TikTok video dated December 2, 2023, the author of the account wrote:
“RIP in three months. May Allah welcome me into his paradise”.
In other videos, the author expressed his resentment towards France, referring to the French military intervention in Mali. -AFP
