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STABBING

Police shoot man after crazed knife attack

A woman was killed and two men were injured when a young man embarked on an unprovoked attack with a knife in the centre of Varberg in western Sweden on Sunday morning.

Published: 7 July 2013 17:57 CEST

The man was shot by police in dramatic scenes in the normally peaceful seaside town, dying later from his injuries.

“At the moment we are unable to establish if he knew the people, I don’t think he did,” said police chief Lars Hamrén, head of the serious crime department Halland police, to the TT news agency.

Police were called at around 10am on Sunday morning following the stabbing of a man, who is reported to be in his forties, on Gamla Kyrkbacken in central Varberg.

According to Varberg Hospital the man remains in intensive care in a serious condition.

While police were hunting the suspect an hour later reports filtered in of further stabbings on Lilla Drottninggatan. A man in his late teens and an elderly lady are reported to have been stabbed at the location.

The teenager is reported to have sustained light but serious injuries.

“We don’t really know yet how he has managed to enter or how he encountered these victims. We have not been able to interview the other two victims,” said Lars Hamrén.

When police tried to arrest the alleged perpetrator on Lilla Drottninggatan a gun battle ensued.

Despite repeated calls to drop the knife and surrender, and two warning shots, the man is reported to have refused and then been shot twice by police. When he tried to rise he was shot once more.

“We don’t comment on how many shots were fired or where he was hit,” said Lars Hamrén.

The man was taken to hospital but later died of his injuries.

TT/The Local/pvs

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STABBING

French prosecutor says Paris suburb stabbing treated as suspected terror attack

French anti-terrorist investigators said on Saturday they have taken over the probe into an attack by a knife-wielding man in a park south of Paris.

Published: 5 January 2020 07:18 CET
French prosecutor says Paris suburb stabbing treated as suspected terror attack
A police forensic team at the scene of the attack in Villejuif. Photo: Christophe Archambault/AFP
The man killed one person walking with his wife before being shot dead by police.
 
Police said the man, identified as 22-year-old Nathan C., attacked several people around lunchtime Friday in the suburb of Villejuif and they initially treated the incident as a criminal not terrorist incident.
   
But in a statement, the French national anti-terrorist investigation body (PNAT) said that while Nathan C. was known to have had psychiatric problems, worrying evidence had also emerged about his conversion to Islam and radicalisation.
   
“Investigations over the past few hours have allowed us to establish that he was certainly radicalised (and to show)… organised preparation for his move towards the act,” the statement said.
   
Additionally, they “showed a murderous path, thought out and chosen, of such a nature as to gravely disturb public order by intimidation or terror,” it said.
 
 
Earlier a local magistrate told a press conference that Nathan C. had shouted the Muslim invocation “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) during the attack.
   
Nathan C. converted to Islam in mid-2017 and is believed to have suffered serious psychiatric problems since he was child, with several spells in hospital. In June he stopped receiving the treatment he was being given.
   
Police found literature characterised as Salafist in a bag after the attack, Philippe Bugeaud of the Paris investigative police told the press conference.
   
There was also a letter “with phrases fairly typical of a Muslim man who self-flagellates and who knows that he may be about to take the plunge,” Bugeaud added.
   
Nathan C.'s apartment in Paris also bore “every sign that it was going to be no longer lived in,” magistrate Laure Beccuau said.
   
Nathan C. apparently spared a first person who said he was a Muslim and had recited a prayer in Arabic, she said.
   
He then attacked the couple, killing the husband and seriously injuring the wife before wounding a woman jogger in the back. Beccuau said the two women had now left hospital.
   
France remains on high alert after being hit by a string of attacks by jihadist extremists since 2015, with more than 250 people killed in total.
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