The day after the knife attack which left one dead and one injured on the banks of the Garonne in Bordeaux on Wednesday, the investigation is focusing on a dispute linked to alcohol between the victims and the alleged perpetrator, who was shot dead by police officers, confirmed the public prosecutor of Bordeaux, Frédérique Porterie, Thursday April 11, during a press conference.
“The attacker, whom they did not know, allegedly accused them of drinking while it was Eid,” a holiday which marks the end of Ramadan for practicing Muslims, she explained.
The two victims are of Algerian nationality, aged 26 for the injured man, whose “days are no longer in danger at this time”, and 37 for the one who died.
Two open investigations
According to the magistrate, the perpetrator, who is of Afghan origin, registered in Europe as an asylum seeker, and aged 25, would have previously had a first similar altercation with other individuals. “No element militates in favor of an attack with terrorist connotations,” said the prosecutor, specifying that the hearings and investigations are continuing.
The Bordeaux public prosecutor's office has opened two judicial investigations. The first, targeting the assailant, “counts of murder, attempted murder and violence with a weapon leading to total incapacity for work of more than eight days on a police officer,” said the prosecutor.
Another investigation was opened for “intentional homicide”, in order to clarify the circumstances in which one of the police officers was led to use his weapon to neutralize the assailant, she added, specifying that the first elements “allow the theory of self-defense to be considered”, and that “the usual summons had been made”. The Bordeaux public prosecutor’s office “has referred this aspect of the investigation to the IGPN,” said the prosecutor.
Hearings in progress
The events occurred shortly before 8 p.m. on Wednesday April 10, in the busy area of the water mirror, on the banks of the Garonne. According to the first elements of the investigation and the testimonies collected, two Algerian individuals were “insulted around 7:30 p.m. by an individual for reasons a priori linked (…) to their consumption of alcohol”. After punching them, he walked away and the two men threw cans at him. He then returned to them, pulled out a knife and stabbed them, one of them fatally.
The man was killed by police as he tried to flee. According to the prosecutor, a police officer “asked the accused to drop his weapon several times” on a nearby bridge, before “using his weapon” in the face of “the threatening attitude of the attacker” to “neutralize the 'attacker', whose death was pronounced at 8:10 p.m.
“Hearings are underway to corroborate this data,” concluded the prosecutor, who specifies that the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office remains “in a position of evaluation until all light is shed on the exact motives of the attacker.”
