Paris shooting suspect admits ‘pathological’ hatred of foreigners

A 69-year-old man was removed from custody on Saturday for health reasons and taken to a police psychiatric facility.

In a statement, Beccuau said the suspect was “depressed” and “suicidal” and “wanted to kill a foreigner” after his home was robbed in 2016.

A shooting at a Kurdish cultural center and a nearby beauty salon on Friday sparked panic in the city’s bustling 10th district, home to several shops and restaurants and a large Kurdish population.

Three others were injured in the attack.

The suspect initially wanted to kill people in the Seine-Saint-Denis district in the northern suburbs of Paris, but decided to go to the 10th arrondissement instead.

The shootings relive the trauma of three unsolved Kurdish killings in 2013 that many blamed on Turkey.

Many in the Kurdish community have expressed outrage, saying French security officials did little to prevent the shootings.

Frustration boiled over on Saturday, when enraged demonstrators clashed with police in central Paris for the second day in a row following a mourning rally.

The capital’s police chief Laurent Nunez told the BFM television channel on Saturday that 31 police officers and one protester had been injured in the riots and 11 had been arrested “mainly for injuries”.

The suspect, named William M. by French media, is a gun enthusiast with a history of weapons crimes who was released on bail earlier this month.

The retired train driver appealed his 2016 conviction of armed violence in a Seine-Saint-Denis court.

A year later, he was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm.

Last year, he was charged with racist violence after he allegedly stabbed migrants in a park east of Paris and cut open their tents with a sword.

– “He is an idiot” –

“He’s crazy, he’s an idiot,” his father reportedly told the M6 ​​television channel.

The Kurds, said to be the world’s largest ethnic group without a state, are a Muslim ethnic group that straddles Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top aide condemned the street unrest that hit Paris following the killing of outlawed PKK militants.

“This is the French PKK,” tweeted President Erdogan’s foreign policy adviser Ibrahim Kalin, posting an image of an overturned and burning car in Paris.

“The same terrorist organization you support in Syria,” he wrote, apparently referring to the YPG.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.

Ankara is in dispute with the US and European powers over support for Kurdish fighters in the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it says is a Syrian offshoot of the PKK.

The YPG has played a central role in the US-led campaign against the jihadists of the Islamic State group in Syria. It has not been banned as a terrorist group by either the United States or the European Union. This is a matter of constant tension in the NATO member’s relations with Turkey.

“The same PKK that has killed thousands of Turks, Kurds and security forces over the last 40 years. Now they are burning the streets of Paris.

Some who attended the ensuing protests chanted slogans referring to the PKK.

mk-alh/ach/raz