7 in custody after stabbing linked to Charlie Hebdo
Seven people were in custody Saturday after a
stabbing outside the former Paris offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo,
including the suspected assailant, authorities said.
Counterterrorism authorities are investigating what
authorities called an extremist attack linked to Charlie Hebdo, which lost 12
employees in an Al-Qaeda attack in 2015. The weekly, which routinely mocks
religious and other prominent figures, recently republished caricatures of the
Prophet Muhammad that outraged many Muslims.
The suspected assailant in Friday’s stabbing had
been arrested a month ago for carrying a screwdriver but was not on police
radar for radicalization, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. He said the
screwdriver was considered a weapon, but did not explain why.
The suspect arrived in France three years ago as an
unaccompanied minor, apparently from Pakistan, but his identity was still being
verified, the minister said.
Seven others were detained in the aftermath of
Friday’s attack, but one has been released, according to judicial officials.
Five of those in custody were detained in the Paris suburb of Pantin in a
residence where the suspect is believed to have lived, a police official said.
Two people were wounded in Friday’s attack, a woman
and a man working at a documentary production company who had stepped outside
for a smoke break.
The interior minister conceded that security was
lacking on the street where Charlie Hebdo was once headquartered, and ordered
special protection for all “symbolic sites,” noting in particular Jewish sites
around the Yom Kippur holiday this weekend. A Jewish grocery store was targeted
days after the Charlie Hebdo newsroom massacre, in what authorities say were
coordinated attacks.
