Protesters march in Paris over killings at Kurdish Institute

Hundreds of protesters marched through Paris yesterday following the murders of three people at a Kurdish cultural centre.

A French pensioner was charged yesterday with carrying out the killings. The suspect, identified in the French media as William M, 69, a retired train driver, was placed under investigation — the equivalent of pressing charges — for allegedly committing an “assassination [in relation] to race, ethnicity, nation or religion”. He was remanded in custody and faces a life sentence if found guilty.

Many protesters said that police had failed to protect the centre, despite warnings that it was a target. Others expressed anger at prosecutors for ruling out terrorism as a motive for the attack.

The march started at the scene of the attack and ended at the Kurdish Institute of Paris, where three women were shot dead in January 2013.

The man charged with the 2013 shootings, a Turkish national, died before he could be put on trial. French investigators reportedly believed that the suspect was linked to Turkish secret services, which is denied by Turkey.

The victims of Friday’s attack had reportedly attended the centre for a meeting to prepare for the tenth anniversary of the 2013 shootings.

Baran Gunduz, a member of the Kurdish Democratic Council of France, said: “There is anger, bitterness and frustration. The Kurdish community in France does not feel safe.”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left-wing France Unbowed party, backed calls for the case to be treated as terrorism. “We don’t believe that it was chance that took the murderer to the place and time of a meeting of Kurdish women to prepare [for the] commemoration of the assassination ten years ago of three Kurdish leaders,” he said.

Prosecutors said on Christmas Day that the suspect had told police he had a “hatred of foreigners that has become pathological”.

He said that he initially intended to attack migrants in a north Paris suburb before changing his mind and targeting the centre.

William M, who used a Colt 45 pistol, said he intended to use all but one of his bullets before committing suicide. He was found in possession of 39 bullets.

He shot six people, killing Emine Kara, 48, a feminist activist, Mir Perwer, a well-known singer, and Abdulrahman Kizil, a prominent member of the centre. Three people were also injured in the attack.

William M then fired at a nearby bar before attacking a Kurdish hairdresser, where he was overpowered by staff.

 “Before committing suicide, I always wanted to assassinate migrants, foreigners, ever since [a burglary at his Parisian home in 2016]”, William M told police after his arrest, prosecutors said.

He also claimed that he had a grudge against Kurds because their forces had taken Islamic State fighters prisoner in Syria instead of killing them. Prosecutors said that William M had been given a six-month suspended prison sentence in 2017 for stabbing the burglar who had entered his home.

They said he was also awaiting trial for attacking and wounding migrants with a sabre in a makeshift camp in Paris in 2021.

He had been released from jail ten days before the shooting, having been held in custody in connection with the sabre attack for 12 months, the limit for such offences.