Paris stabbing attack an act of terrorism: French minister

Photo: MTI/AP/Thibault Camus

The stabbing attack in Paris on Friday near the former offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was “clearly an act of Islamist terrorism,” said French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

“It is clearly an act of Islamist terrorism,” Darmanin told France 2 TV channel. “This is the street where there was Charlie Hebdo. It is the operating method of Islamist terrorists, of course, evidently, there is little doubt,” he added.

At around 11:30 a.m. local time on Friday, a man and a woman smoking on the street of Nicolas-Appert, in the 11th district of Paris, were attacked by knife. The two persons were journalists and their lives were not in danger.

France’s National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office announced that an investigation was opened for “attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise.”

At around 12:30, the anti-terror prosecutor announced that the main suspect in the stabbing attack was arrested and taken into custody. A second man, aged 33 and suspected of being linked to the attack, was arrested by the Railway Network Brigade at 1:30 p.m. in the Paris metro.

Five more people were taken into custody as part of the investigation, bringing to seven the number of people held in police custody in this case, reported local channel BFM TV.

The place of Friday’s attack was symbolic, outside Charlie Hebdo’s former offices. On Jan. 7, 2015, almost at the same time of the day, a terror attack killed 12 Charlie Hebdo employees. Earlier this month, a trial of 14 suspects charged in connection with the attack began in Paris.