Man held on terror charges after two wounded in Paris cleaver attack

From AFP via Yahoo News

A man armed with a meat cleaver wounded two in Paris Friday outside the former offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo before being arrested by police, three weeks into the trial of suspected accomplices in the 2015 massacre of the newspaper’s staff.

France’s PNAT specialist anti-terror prosecution office said it has opened a probe into charges of “attempted murder related to a terrorist enterprise” as well as “conspiracy with terrorists.”

Charlie Hebdo has angered many Muslims around the world by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed over the years, and in a defiant gesture reprinted some of the caricatures ahead of the trial.

Paris police said two people were “critically wounded” in Friday’s attack near the paper’s former offices in the French capital’s 11th district. The magazine’s new address is kept secret.

A large meat cleaver found near the scene is believed to have been used by the attacker.

Prime Minister Jean Castex, visiting the scene, said the lives of the two victims “are not in danger, thank God”.

The Premieres Lignes news production agency said the wounded were its employees — a man and a woman taking a cigarette break outside.

Paris prosecutors said the “main perpetrator” was arrested not far from the scene of the crime.

According to PNAT head Jean-Francois Ricard, the suspect was an 18-year-old man. Initial indications are that he was born in Pakistan.

A second person, aged 33, was arrested later and held for questioning to determine possible links to the “main perpetrator,” said Ricard.