PARIS: French police on Wednesday detained a man on suspicion of carrying out the recent shootings at a left-wing newspaper and a bank headquarters in Paris, prosecutors said.
Paris police had been hunting a man suspected of Monday's shooting at newspaper Liberation - which critically wounded a photographer -- a subsequent shooting outside the offices of bank Societe Generale and a carjacking that ended on the Avenue des Champs Elysees.
The man, bearing a "strong physical resemblance" to the suspected gunman, was arrested around 7:00 pm (1800 GMT) in a vehicle in an underground parking lot in the western Paris suburb of Bois-Colombes, the Paris prosecutors' office said.
Police took DNA samples from the suspect and were to test them against samples taken at the sites of the various attacks, according to sources close to the investigation.
The results of the tests were expected within a few hours.
The arrest came after a witness statement to police, who had on Tuesday released a new photograph of the man suspected in the attacks and received hundreds of calls from potential witnesses.
Prosecutors said the suspect was not immediately in a position to be questioned and that the reading of his rights had been deferred, but provided no explanation.
Several sources close to the probe said the suspect was found in a semi-conscious state, with one saying this was "probably following the taking of medications, which may suggest an attempted suicide".
Police had earlier said that DNA tests had confirmed that a single person was responsible for the series of attacks across Paris in the last week.
The man opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun at the offices of Liberation early on Monday, shooting a 23-year-old photographer's assistant as he hauled gear in the lobby, then firing another blast that hit the roof before leaving within seconds.
He then crossed the city to the La Defense business district on its western edge, where he fired several shots outside the main office of the Societe Generale bank, hitting no one.
He then hijacked a car and forced the driver to drop him off close to the Champs Elysees in the centre of the French capital, before disappearing.
Police say he was the same man who last Friday stormed into the Paris headquarters of a 24-hour TV news channel, BFMTV, briefly threatening staff with a gun before hurrying out.
His attacks set off a major manhunt and raised concerns about violence against media outlets.
The photographer, who suffered wounds to the chest and stomach, was rushed to surgery and appeared to be in better condition on Wednesday.
Hospital officials said he had regained consciousness and was no longer in need of an artificial respirator.
The new photo of the suspect, taken by a surveillance camera and released by authorities, showed a white man, aged 35 to 45, with a round face and thin-framed glasses, wearing a red jacket and beige cap and carrying a black shoulder bag.
The motive for his attacks was not known.
Witnesses had described the gunman as calm, precise and determined and experts said he was likely to have worked alone and been well-organised.
Comments
Comments are closed.