ATTACK IN ISÈRE: VICTIM WAS HIT UNCONSCIOUS WITH A JACK, THEN STRANGLED
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http://www.20minutes.fr/societe/164...e-elements-laisse-entrevoir-mobile-terroriste
In custody, Yassin Salhi has denied "any religious connotation to his act."
But Francois Molins, the State Prosecutor, revealed on Tuesday morning that the investigation allows many "glimpses into a terrorist motive" to the attack perpetrated on Friday at the Air Products plant in Saint-Quentin Fallavier (Isère).
The Paris (*) prosecutor has ordered the opening of a judicial investigation into the murder of a businessman and an attack on an industrial gas site on Friday in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère), including
attempted murder in relation to a terrorist undertaking. The prosecutor has also requested the provisional detention of the alleged perpetrator, Yassin Salhi, after his presentation Tuesday before an investigating judge for indictment.
Almost at the end of the 96 hours of police custody of the suspect, the prosecutor wanted to take stock of the investigations.
"We are of the opinion that his actions correspond exactly with the methods of Daesh". This starts with the macabre staging that the main suspect set up.
He has confessed to "having knocked out his employer with the blow of a jack, then strangling him with one hand," the prosecutor said. At 500 meters from the plant Air Products, Salih Yassin, according to his statements, stopped on the roadside to decapitate Hervé Cornara in the back of the van. "The investigation was unable to establish whether this took place beheading ante or post-mortem," François Molins said, adding that "additional tests" are still ongoing.
But it is mainly the staging which the suspect undertook that is reminiscent of the barbarism orchestrated by Daesh in Syria or Iraq.
"He took two pictures of the body. The first shows the body of the victim wrapped in a flag with the shahada (the Islamic profession of faith) with head resting on the torso. The second, a typical selfie, shows the suspect posing with the head of his victim."
However, in police custody, the suspect showed a "selective memory", according to François Molins, hiding behind "an alleged amnesia". Thus, he assured the investigators having no memory of the beheading nor of the pictures he took of his alleged crime.
These elements do not fit in with the findings of the investigation. During a search, the police found that Yassin Salhi had sent his pictures to a "contact" in Syria, a native of Haute-Saône named Sébastien-Younis V. "On the phone, we found a Conversation of June 26, in which Sebastien-Younis assures his nearest and dearest that he is one of the instigators of the act allegedly committed by Yassin Salhi," Francois Molins said. And in that phone conversation via the Network
Whatsapp Sébastien-Younis also says he sought permission from the Islamic state to disseminate the snapshots taken by Yassin Salhi.
Yet in custody, Yassin Salhi disputed any religious connotation, explaining his crime by a recent quarrel with the victim who was also his employer and relationship problems with his wife, who according to would be "not religious enough".
But tracing his trail back in history, the investigators found that Yassin Salhi was known to intelligence services since 2003 in relation to radical Islamism facts. He also claims that he left for Syria with his wife and children for a year in 2009, a claim that the investigators could not verify.
They are, however, convinced that this man - whose this indictment and detention were required - was linked in 2011 with a member of the Islamic group Forzane Alliza, that has since been dissolved. And last year, one of his neighbors had reported him to the police after discovering that he was organizing religious meetings in his home.
BBM
(*) François Molins is the highest Prosecutor of the Republic at the High Court in Paris.
Wikipedia:
The jurisdiction of the High Court of Paris extends solely over the whole of the capital. It is located in the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal of Paris. In matters of terrorism however, its jurisdiction is national or in corruption or tax evasion. The financial prosecutor of the Republic reports to this tribunal.
