Knifeman shot by cops at Arc de Triomphe in Paris dies and police probe terror over attack as his identity emerges
An ISIS-linked terrorist who attempted to stab a police officer near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris has died in hospital after being shot “three times”.
Brahim Bahrir, 48, launched the attack under the monument – just weeks after being released from prison.
An investigating source said: “He was supposed to be under surveillance but that didn’t stop him from striking. »
Wielding a kitchen knife and a pair of scissors, the attacker attempted to stab an officer while rekindling the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The ceremony takes place every week at 6:30 p.m., a tradition maintained since November 11, 1923 to honor fallen French soldiers.
A second police officer, present at the scene, saw the attack unfold and returned fire, shooting four times, three of which hit the man in the torso and leg.
THE HELL OF “ABUSE”
“Serial pedophile teacher who abused children in NINE countries” charged
TWIN MYSTERY
Identical twins on trial for murder – but cops don’t know which one committed the crime
Images shared on social media show the man surrounded by officers, moments before being neutralized by gunfire. We see him slumped against a police van.
The man was rushed to the Georges Pompidou European Hospital where he “died from his injuries within a few hours”, said the source, who added: “No one else was injured.”
Bahrir, a French citizen, was born in 1978 in the town of Mantes-la-Jolie, in Yvelines.
On June 8, 2012, he stabbed three police officers in Brussels, later telling prosecutors he wanted to “punish” them for banning Muslim women from wearing the burqa.
Bahrir was sentenced to prison for the attacks committed in an underground station in Molenbeek, a Brussels suburb.
He stabbed them all, including a woman, with a knife and confessed to his crimes in court.
At the time, he was a leading member of Sharia4Belgium, an Islamist group that advocated for Belgium to become an Islamic state.
The group was classified as a terrorist organization in 2016 and banned due to its work recruiting men to fight for ISIS in Syria.
A lawyer for Bahrir said at the time that he became radicalized after losing his job at SNCF, France’s national railway company, and separating from his wife.
In 2013, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for “attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise against three police officers”, “illegal possession of category A weapons or war material” and “armed rebellion”.
He was then transferred from Belgium to a French prison to serve his sentence, and was released last Christmas Eve, December 24.
Following his death, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation for “attempted assassination on a person holding public authority in relation to a terrorist enterprise” and “participation in a terrorist criminal association”.
Earlier Friday, police officers from the Aulnay-sous-Bois police station, where Bahrir lived, received a phone call from him announcing that he was “going to shoot soldiers”, a source in charge of the investigation told Le Parisien.
The first investigations made it possible to find his mobile phone not far from the Arc de Triomphe.
Bahrir had been the subject of a terrorist file since December and was reported as “radicalized and potentially dangerous”.
As such, he was required to report daily to the Aulnay-sous-Bois police station – a measure he respected until today.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said of the incident earlier in the evening: “A man attempted to attack members of the gendarmerie with a knife, including members of the gendarmerie band who were preparing for the ceremony.
“This individual attempted to take the life of a police officer.”
