Interior minister says that in addition to intel mishap, doctors claimed Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab was ‘doing better’; Paris concerned over attacks ahead of 2024 Olympics
https://www.timesofisrael.com/franc...-care-of-radical-islamist-who-killed-tourist/
PARIS, France (AFP) — There was a clear failure in the psychiatric care of the radicalized Islamist suffering from mental troubles who stabbed a German tourist to death in central Paris at the weekend, France’s interior minister said Monday.
The attack close to the Eiffel Tower has increased concerns in France over the risk of Islamist attacks, particularly with the French capital now barely half a year away from hosting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
The attacker was a Frenchman in his mid-20s born to a non-religious Iranian family who had already done prison time for planning an attack and was known to the authorities as an Islamist radical with mental troubles.
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“There was clearly a failure, not from the point of view of his monitoring by the intelligence services, but a psychiatric failure,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told BFM TV, adding the attacker had an “acute mental illness.”
“Doctors said on several occasions that he was doing better, was more normal, and could be free.”
‘Exploiting weaknesses’
Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, a French national of Iranian origin born in 1997, killed a 23-year-old German-Filipino man with two blows from a hammer and four stab wounds from a knife on Saturday evening close to the Eiffel Tower.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin (3rdR) attends a meeting with French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne (2ndL) and ministers, a day after one person was killed and two others wounded in a knife attack, at the Matignon Hotel in Paris, on December 3, 2023. (JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP)
The investigation is being handled by French anti-terror prosecutors who have launched a probe into a suspected “terrorist” plot.
France’s top anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said Sunday the man’s mother had reported concerns about him as recently as October, but there was insufficient proof at the time to take legal action.
He had already been arrested in 2016 for planning an attack, eventually serving four years in prison, and had been under close watch following his release.
Darmanin said the attacker’s mother had warned police that her son was no longer taking his medication and intelligence services had offered that he should be hospitalized. But she did not want that and then reported he was doing better.
He said regional authorities currently did not have the power to issue an administrative order for such an individual to undergo psychiatric treatment and “this has to change.”
Rajabpour-Miyandoab had been radicalized through contacts on the internet rather than meeting people at a mosque, he emphasized, adding the attacker had also been in touch with perpetrators of similar past attacks.
These contacts included the radicalized Islamist from Russia’s northern Caucasus region who would eventually behead teacher Samuel Paty outside his school in 2020.
“Terrorism is changing and exploiting the weaknesses of our system,” said Darmanin.
