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Paris-Area Knife Assailant Viewed Jihadist Videos Prior to Attack, Officials
Say

Lisa Bryant

   PARIS - A fifth person is being held for questioning in the stabbing
   death late last week of a police employee outside Paris, France's
   anti-terrorism prosecutor said Sunday. He noted the assailant, a
   Tunisian national, viewed videos glorifying jihad, or Muslim holy war,
   and may have visited to a Muslim prayer hall before the attack.

   AAnti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard confirmed reports that
   Tunisian Jamel Gorchene consulted videos on his cell phone extolling
   martyrdom and jihad, minutes before stabbing a 49-year-old police
   worker and mother of two Friday in the quiet town of Rambouillet, 60
   kilometers from Paris.
   Speaking at a press conference, Ricard recounted in detail Gorchene's
   actions leading up to the attack that took place at a police station.
   Ricard said cameras captured Gorchene passing the station in
   Rambouillet several times on a scooter. They also captured him heading
   toward a Muslim prayer hall, but there were no images of him actually
   going inside. Ricard said police later found a Quran and Muslim prayer
   rug in Gorchene's scooter.
   Ricard said on Friday afternoon, Gorchene headed to the police station
   as his victim left the building. He appeared to have consulted the
   phone videos just before sprinting after the worker as she reentered
   the precinct. Witnesses said he cried Allahu Akbhar, or God is great,
   in Arabic, as he stabbed her in the abdomen and throat. Ricard says
   police shot Gorchene dead after Gorchene refused to put down his knife.
   Police officers secure the area where an attacker stabbed a female
   police worker, in Rambouillet, near Paris, France, April 23, 2021.

   Police have detained several people, including Gorchene's father, two
   cousins and a couple who sheltered the 36-year-old assailant in another
   Paris-area town. The father told French investigators his son had
   adopted a rigorous form of Islam. Ricard said Gorchene also consulted
   psychiatric services at a hospital but didn't appear to need treatment.
   The prosecutor said Gorchene's Facebook page appears to show a slow
   change from religious ideology to embracing violence. He said Gorchene
   registered support, for example, for the assailant who beheaded school
   teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb last October after Paty showed
   his class cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider
   the images blasphemous.
   Ricard said France is working with investigators in Tunisia, where
   Gorchene returned to visit family near the coastal city of Sousse
   earlier this year. Ricard said Gorchene received French working papers
   last year as a delivery man but appeared to have lived illegally in
   France for a long period before that.
   Authorities are looking for other possible suspects or accomplices in
   the killing.
   Tunisia was among the biggest exporters of jihadists to places like
   Syria and Libya a few years ago. Tunisian authorities have condemned
   the Rambouillet attack.
   French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin unveils new legislation
   Wednesday to reinforce the fight against terrorism here. In an
   interview published Sunday, Darmanin called it France's biggest threat,
   with 575 suspected radicals expelled from the country since 2017.