A man who beheaded his employer, pinned the head on a fence and tried to blow up an industrial gas plant will be investigated on terrorism charges, France’s chief public prosecutor said yesterday, dismissing the suspect’s claim that his act was not motivated by connections with Islamist militants.
Prosecutor François Molins announced the news at the end of a 96-hour custody period following the arrest of Yassin Salhi (35) at the scene of the crime near the city of Lyon.
The attack last Friday came five months after 17 people were killed in Paris by Islamist militants who targeted the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical journal and a Jewish shop.
Molins said 120 investigators had spent four days combing through phone messages and quizzing Salhi, who worked as a delivery man, and his relatives.
They discovered he had sent two photos of his act to an Islamist militant contact in Syria. One showed the murdered man, and the other was a selfie with the victim.
The severed head of Salhi’s employer was found chained to a fence, next to flags bearing professions of the Muslim faith, at the site of the US-based gas and chemicals company Air Products. Salhi was captured there after allegedly trying to blow up gas canisters.
A lawyer for Salhi told BFM TV that Salhi was “in no way a militant”, a line of defence his client pursued during initial questioning but which Molins dismissed.
The prosecutor said the suspect had left home with a long-bladed knife, hit his boss on the head with a car jack, then strangled him and drove to the gas plant. On the way, he allegedly stopped to sever the head, and pin it to the factory fence.
Salhi, who initially refused to talk, argued that his act was motivated by personal problems, namely a quarrel with his wife and boss, said Molins. But he said there was evidence to support the charge that it was also a terrorist act: “One doesn’t rule out the other.”
Molins revealed that Salhi’s sister said during questioning that he had spent a year in Syria in 2009, and on his return spent time in Koranic schooling and hardcore combat sports.
“Yassin Salhi beheaded his victim and pinned his head on a fence to seek maximum publicity for his act,” said Molins.
– (Reuters)