- Joined
- Mar 11, 2013
- Messages
- 16,084
- Points
- 113
A known Islamist terrorist with a record for stabbing police officers was shot dead tonight after trying to attack uniformed French bandsmen by the Arc de Triomphe.
Brahim Bahrir, 48, launched a ferocious onslaught by the world-famous Paris monument, less than two months after being released from prison. Bahrir, a French national born in the town of Mantes-la-Jolie, north-west of Paris, was heard shouting: "Our women and children should not have been killed. We’ll see who triumphs under the Arc de Triomphe."
An investigating source said: "He was meant to be under surveillance but this did not stop him striking. "It was shortly after 6pm when the suspect launched himself at those preparing to perform the daily ceremony rekindling the flame on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, underneath the Arc de Triomphe."
A man armed with a knife was shot after attacking a police officer (
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
Three members of the Gendarmerie Mobile Band were standing underneath the monument, when Bahrir brandished a kitchen knife and pair of scissors at them. He lunged at one, who escaped injury, before another one opened fire with a service revolver.
The suspect was shot four times in the chest and leg before being rushed to the Georges Pompidou European Hospital where he "died of his wounds within a few hours" said the source, who added: "Nobody else was hurt."
It later emerged that Bahrir had been released from prison seven weeks ago and was meant to be under surveillance. On June 8th, 2012, he stabbed three police officers in Brussels, later telling prosecutors that he wanted to ‘punish them’ for not allowing Muslim women to wear burqas.
He had been sentenced to prison for the attacks in an underground train station in Molenbeek, the Brussels suburb. He stabbed all of them, including a woman, with a knife and confessed to his crimes in court. A lawyer for Brahim B. said at the time that he had been radicalised after losing his job at SNCF, the French national railway, and separating from his wife.
French police officers in Paris minutes after the attack (
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
In 2013, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for ‘attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise against three police officers’, ‘illegal possession of category A weapons or war materiel,’ and ‘armed rebellion.’ He was later transferred from Belgium to a French prison to complete his sentence, and was released last Christmas Eve, December 24.
Earlier on Friday, officers at the police station in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, where Brahim B. lived, received a phone call from him saying he was "going to shoot some soldiers", an investigating source told Le Parisien. Initial investigations had traced his mobile phone in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Arc de Triomphe.
Bahrir had been the subject of a terrorist file since December, and was flagged as ‘radicalised and potentially dangerous’. As such, he was required to report daily to the Aulnay-sous-Bois police station – a measure he had complied with until today.
Brahim Bahrir, 48, launched a ferocious onslaught by the world-famous Paris monument, less than two months after being released from prison. Bahrir, a French national born in the town of Mantes-la-Jolie, north-west of Paris, was heard shouting: "Our women and children should not have been killed. We’ll see who triumphs under the Arc de Triomphe."
An investigating source said: "He was meant to be under surveillance but this did not stop him striking. "It was shortly after 6pm when the suspect launched himself at those preparing to perform the daily ceremony rekindling the flame on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, underneath the Arc de Triomphe."
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
Three members of the Gendarmerie Mobile Band were standing underneath the monument, when Bahrir brandished a kitchen knife and pair of scissors at them. He lunged at one, who escaped injury, before another one opened fire with a service revolver.
The suspect was shot four times in the chest and leg before being rushed to the Georges Pompidou European Hospital where he "died of his wounds within a few hours" said the source, who added: "Nobody else was hurt."
It later emerged that Bahrir had been released from prison seven weeks ago and was meant to be under surveillance. On June 8th, 2012, he stabbed three police officers in Brussels, later telling prosecutors that he wanted to ‘punish them’ for not allowing Muslim women to wear burqas.
He had been sentenced to prison for the attacks in an underground train station in Molenbeek, the Brussels suburb. He stabbed all of them, including a woman, with a knife and confessed to his crimes in court. A lawyer for Brahim B. said at the time that he had been radicalised after losing his job at SNCF, the French national railway, and separating from his wife.
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
In 2013, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for ‘attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise against three police officers’, ‘illegal possession of category A weapons or war materiel,’ and ‘armed rebellion.’ He was later transferred from Belgium to a French prison to complete his sentence, and was released last Christmas Eve, December 24.
Earlier on Friday, officers at the police station in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, where Brahim B. lived, received a phone call from him saying he was "going to shoot some soldiers", an investigating source told Le Parisien. Initial investigations had traced his mobile phone in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Arc de Triomphe.
Bahrir had been the subject of a terrorist file since December, and was flagged as ‘radicalised and potentially dangerous’. As such, he was required to report daily to the Aulnay-sous-Bois police station – a measure he had complied with until today.
