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Man held after his father and brother found with throats slit in Paris

Police in Paris have launched an investigation after two men, a father and his son, were found with their throats slit in the French capital. Another son has been arrested in connection with the murders and has since been transferred to a secure psychiatric unit, reports say.

Man held after his father and brother found with throats slit in Paris
File photo: AFP

A man was arrested in Paris on Friday suspected of slitting the throats of his father and brother at the entrance to a building in the capital's trendy 11th district, police sources told AFP.

The sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said the reason for the attack was being investigated.

The two men died at the scene despite efforts by paramedics to save them. 

After interrogation, the attacker was taken to a secure psychiatric ward on Friday afternoon, according to reports. 

“I came down and saw one body in the hall and another in the courtyard. There was blood everywhere,” one resident told Le Parisien newspaper.

Some witnesses said the suspect made remarks “linked to radical Islam” but the police urged caution, saying the killer's motives were unknown.

Newspaper Le Figaro cited a police source who said the knifeman shouted “Allahu Akbar” ('God is greatest', in Arabic).

The attacked happened outside a building on Rue de Montreuil in the east of the French capital near Place de la Nation (see map below).

A resident of the high-rise building in the city's 11th district said he heard a man “crying for help” at around 11am.

“I looked out the window and saw a man lying on the ground. There was a lot of blood.

“There was another man standing beside him, dressed in a white djellaba (loose-fitting tunic worn by some Muslims). He fell to his knees and prayed until the police came to take him away,” 21-year-old Thomas told AFP.

Another resident, 64-year-old Francois Petitjean, described a harrowing scene.

“When I arrived in the hall of the building I saw a body lying in a pool of blood, in front of the postboxes. It was carnage. I went out and then saw another person covered in blood,” he said, expressing shock.

Police had sealed off a section of the street around the building. No further details on the suspect or the victims were immediately available.

Specialist police SWAT teams were sent to the incident and a large cordon was set up around the scene of the crime. As a result traffic was disrupted in the neighbourhood.

Images and videos posted from the scene showed the area was calm while many residents told Le Parisien newspaper they had not seen or heard anything.

 

CRIME

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

French authorities have uncovered a website for a fake recruitment drive purportedly seeking French volunteers to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

The site has now been taken down by French services, a government source, who asked not to be named, told AFP without elaborating.

The site had said that 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine”, with immigrants given priority.

A link to the site – that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal – had been posted on X, formerly Twitter, the French defence ministry said.

“The site is a fake government site,” the ministry said, also on X, “and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign”.

The ministry did not say who they thought might be responsible. But a source close to the government told AFP initial evidence pointed to communications operations linked to Russian mercenary group Wagner.

“The accounts used and the technical data behind them, these are the people we know”, the source said.

“These people are still there and remain very focused on Ukraine. The subject of the French army is something that annoys them a lot.”

Separately, a government official speaking on condition of anonymity said the site bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine”.

French President Emmanuel Macron angered the Russian leadership last month by hardening his tone on the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In recent weeks he has refused to rule out sending ground troops and insisted that Europe has to do all that is necessary for a Russian defeat.

France has already accused Russia of waging a disinformation campaign against it.

The official told AFP that similar recent examples of disinformation posts included pictures of French army convoys wrongly presented as moving towards the Ukrainian border.

The fake website invited potential recruits to contact “unit commander Paul” for information about joining.

The defence ministry and government cyber units are investigating, ministry staff told AFP.

The French government has recently stepped up efforts to denounce and fight what it says are Russian disinformation and destabilisation campaigns aimed at undermining French public support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“Russia is asserting itself as the most aggressive player in the information field,” Marc-Antoine Brillant, the head of Viginum, an agency mandated to detect digital disinformation campaigns, said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro.

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