A MAN who fatally stabbed two women outside Marseille’s main train station had been detained for shoplifting and released the day before the attack, and used multiple fake identities in a series of previous arrests, the authorities have said.
French officials were studying the suspect’s mobile phone and working to determine whether he had accomplices or direct links to Daesh, which claimed responsibility for Sunday’s stabbings at the Saint Charles station.
The attacker was killed by soldiers immediately after the attack. He was identified by his fingerprints, which matched those taken during previous arrests, according to two police officials. He was not on France’s extremist watch list.
The man did not appear to have French residency papers. He was detained for suspected shoplifting at a department store in Lyon on Saturday before being released, according to police union official Yves Lefebvre.
Lefebvre added that “while it could shock the public, unfortunately it doesn’t shock us, the police” that the suspect was released the day before carrying out a deadly attack.
Lefebvre said shoplifting usually results in a quick police report and a court summons for a later date, and the suspect is released.
“Nothing allowed us to suspect there was a threat of radicalisation during the Lyon arrest,” he said.
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