Marseille stabbing
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On 1 October 2017, a man killed two women at the Saint-Charles train station in
Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. The women, 20-year-old and 21-year-old cousins, were attacked by an
illegal immigrant Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...
from
Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...
using a knife. Patrolling soldiers, who had been deployed on national soil following an increase in Islamic terrorist threats, shot him dead at the scene. The brother of the attacker was later arrested and faced preliminary charges of suspicion of involvement in the train station attack. French police were cautious as to whether it was a terrorist attack, but it was later classified as jihadist terrorism by Europol.


Attack

Surveillance video showed the perpetrator sitting on a bench for a few minutes outside the station, then rising and stabbing a woman several times then running away while screaming ''
Allahu akbar Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", an ...
'', before returning to attack the second woman. A female passerby attempted to intervene. The perpetrator then attempted to attack two soldiers patrolling the station, but was shot dead with two bullets. Police described the weapon used as a knife approximately 20 cm long. The victims were cousins, a 20-year-old medical student at
Aix-Marseille University Aix-Marseille University (AMU; french: Aix-Marseille Université; formally incorporated as ''Université d'Aix-Marseille'') is a public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II o ...
and a 21-year-old studying nursing in
Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
; one was stabbed while the other had her throat cut. The Prosecutor of France, François Molins, later confirmed that the perpetrator twice shouted "Allahu akbar". French prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation for "murders in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "attempted assassination of persons holding public authority", but investigators remained cautious about the nature of the incident. Central, rather than anti-terrorist, police handled the investigation. French interior minister
Gérard Collomb Gérard Collomb (; born 20 June 1947) is a French politician who served as Mayor of Lyon from 2001 to 2017 and again from 2018 until 2020. A member of La République En Marche! (LREM) since he left the Socialist Party (PS) in 2017, he was Ministe ...
said: "It might be a terrorist act, but at this point we can’t say so with certainty".


Perpetrator

On 30 September, the day before the attack, the perpetrator had been arrested in Lyon on suspicion of shoplifting. He was held overnight; however, he was not on the terror watch list and police released him. The perpetrator was found to have used multiple identities, but his real identity was established using fingerprints which matched those taken in seven previous incidents registered by French police since 2005. Authorities in Lyon had considered deporting him, but hesitated due to the uncertainty of his identity. He was carrying a
Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...
n passport when arrested in Lyon on the day before the attack, but not carrying any ID at the time of the attack. He was in France illegally. Tunisian authorities have identified him as Ahmed Hanachi; he had been arrested for various offences there and a dozen times in France, and had admitted to police that he was addicted to drugs. French authorities said there was no outward evidence that the attacker had been radicalised. The investigators announced that no ties were found between the perpetrator and any terror group, though it was later classified as jihadist terrorism by Europol. The
ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
-related
Amaq News Agency Amaq News Agency ( ar, وكالة أعماق الإخبارية) is a news outlet linked to the Islamic State (IS). Amaq publishes news reports about claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks in Western countries. It is often the "first poi ...
claimed that the perpetrator was a "soldier" of the Islamic State. The perpetrator's friends and family dismissed the notion that he was radicalised, saying that he was a drug addict who had lost his way. Investigators found jihadist videos on the attacker's phone..


Other arrests

On 8 October, Italian police arrested a younger brother of the attacker, identified as 25-year-old Anis Hanachi in the town of
Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
, after an international arrest warrant had been issued by France. He was being held on suspicion of complicity in the attack and of membership in a terrorist group. He had reportedly fought in Syria, and had previously been expelled from Italy in 2014 after arriving in Sicily illegally on a smuggler boat. On 10 October, Swiss police detained two Tunisians in the town of
Chiasso Chiasso (; lmo, Ciass ) is a municipality in the district of Mendrisio in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. As the southernmost of Switzerland's municipalities, Chiasso is on the border with Italy, in front of Ponte Chiasso (a frazione of C ...
near the Swiss-Italian border, including another brother of the attacker who was "known to foreign police services for his links to jihadist terrorist movements". The couple, a man and a woman who were
seeking asylum An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and mi ...
in Switzerland were due to be sent back to Tunisia. The man's role in the Marseille attack, "if any, is not clear", Swiss police said. Tunisian authorities said two other siblings of the attacker living in
Bizerte Bizerte or Bizerta ( ar, بنزرت, translit=Binzart , it, Biserta, french: link=no, Bizérte) the classical Hippo, is a city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia. It is the northernmost city in Africa, located 65 km (40mil) north of the cap ...
had been held for questioning.


Reactions

Both French
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
and local politician
Samia Ghali Samia Ghali (; born 10 June 1968) is a French politician who served as a Senator for Bouches-du-Rhône from 2008 to 2020. A member of the Socialist Party (PS), she also held the mayorship of the 8th sector of Marseille, which comprises the 15th a ...
praised the efficiency of the
Opération Sentinelle Opération Sentinelle is a French military operation with 10,000 soldiers and 4,700 police and gendarmes deployed since the aftermath of the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, with the objective of protecting the deemed sensitive "points" of th ...
soldiers who stopped the attack, with Ghali telling local radio "If the military had not been there, we would have had a lot more deaths."


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marseille 21st century in Marseille 2017 murders in France Crime in Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur Islamic terrorism in France Islamic terrorist incidents in 2017 October 2017 crimes in Europe October 2017 events in France Opération Sentinelle Stabbing attacks in 2017 Stabbing attacks in France Attacks in France in the 2010s Terrorist incidents involving knife attacks Terrorist incidents in France in 2017