The victims were “people targeted for the sole reason that they were present in this church”: Minister
Paris:
A 47-year-old man suspected of having come into contact with the alleged knife that killed three people in a church in the French city of Nice has been arrested for questioning, a judicial source said on Friday.
The man was arrested Thursday evening after the attack on Notre-Dame Basilica in Nice by a 21-year-old Tunisian who arrived in France on October 9.
French counterterrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard said the attacker, identified as Brahim Aouissaoui, had a copy of the Koran, two phones and three knives when he entered the church in the center of the Mediterranean town around 8:30 a.m.
He slit the throats of a 60-year-old woman and a 55-year-old man who worked at the church, and stabbed a 44-year-old woman who managed to flee but later died from her injuries .
The victims were “people targeted for the sole reason that they were present in this church at the time,” Ricard said at a press conference Thursday evening.
President Emmanuel Macron has called it an “Islamist terrorist attack” and the government has set its terrorist alert to the max before the Catholic holiday of All Saints on Sunday.
Macron is holding an emergency meeting on the attack with key ministers on Friday.
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