France Checks Video Claim For Paris Knife Attack

Paris, Sept 27 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Sep, 2020 ) :French investigators were Sunday studying a video claiming responsibility for the meat cleaver attack in Paris that targeted satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Six people were still in custody, including the suspected perpetrator of Friday's attack that left two badly wounded outside Charlie Hebdo's former offices in Paris.

The man is an 18-year-old named as Hassan A, according to a source close to the investigation.

Held since Friday, he told investigators he had carried out the attack to avenge the republication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) by Charlie Hebdo, which was the target of a January 2015 massacre by Islamist gunmen.

The investigators were now seeking to authenticate a video which they believe could show Hassan A. announcing he was about to carry out the attack.

"We see him crying, chanting. He claims in advance his act by evoking the republication of the caricatures," said the source, who asked not to be named.

"It is a kind of manifesto, he announces he is going to act," the source said, adding: "It is not a claim of allegiance to an organisation." The two people wounded were employees of prize-winning tv production agency Premieres Lignes, whose offices are in the same block that used to house Charlie Hebdo in the centre of the capital .

However it is not believed that the two, whose lives are not in danger, were specifically targeted.

The man mistakenly believed Charlie Hebdo's offices were still in that building and wanted to attack journalists from the magazine, according to his statement to investigators.

One person arrested was released overnight. But as well as the main suspect eight others were still being held.

They include his younger brother and people who lived with him at his last place of residence in northern Paris.

Police on Sunday also detained a woman who had been living at the same residence, a judicial source said, without giving further details.

The arrests were aimed at understanding the "environment" of the main suspect, a source close to the case said, adding: "Everything leads us to think he acted alone."An Algerian man, detained close to the scene of the attack, had also been released. His lawyer said her client had actually been "heroically" chasing the attacker.

The attack came three weeks into a trial in Paris of suspected accomplices in the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo, a policewoman and a Jewish supermarket that left 17 people dead.