Attack on the Paris Police Prefecture
The attack on the police prefecture of Paris was an Islamist attack in France , in which police officer Mickaël Harpon murdered four colleagues with knife stabs and seriously injured a fifth victim on October 3, 2019 at his workplace on the Parisian island Île de la Cité . The case also had an impact on politics, as the French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner was accused of covering up the Islamist motive after misinforming the public.
Perpetrator
The 45-year-old family man Mickaël Harpon was identified as the perpetrator of the attack. Harpon was born in 1974 in Fort-de-France on the Caribbean island of Martinique , a French overseas department . Since 2003 he has been working as a computer scientist in the Police Prefecture of Paris , which is located on the Paris inland island Île de la Cité . Specifically, he was classified as a secret carrier and assigned to the police secret service DRPP, which is responsible, among other things, for monitoring and combating Islamic terrorism. Mickaël Harpon was married and suffered from hearing loss. According to the investigation, Harpon converted to Islam about ten years before the crime . He lived in the Banlieue Gonesse and visited the mosque of an extremist imam there . After the crime, contact persons from the Salafist scene and a corresponding chat group in the Telegram messenger service were discovered on his cell phone . In addition, USB sticks with propaganda by the terrorist militia “ Islamic State” were found during a search of his apartment . In 2015, Harpon had already attracted internal attention for justifying the Islamist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo . The incident was reported to a supervisor who declined to forward it because he did not consider Harpon a threat and appreciated his work.
Course of action
On the day of the offense, Mickaël Harpon exchanged a multitude of cryptic messages of religious content with his Moroccan wife Ilham E. between 11.12 a.m. and 11.50 a.m. immediately before the attack was committed. After Harpon had written her the Islamic testimony of faith " Allahu akbar ", the latter answered him at the end of their conversation: "Follow our beloved prophet Mohammed and heed the Koran!" During his lunch break at 12:34 p.m., Harpon acquired a 13-inch kitchen knife and an oyster knife with a shorter blade. With this he returned to his place of work. At 12.53 p.m. he slit the throat of the colleague with whom he shared the office. He then killed other police officers with forceful stabs in the chest and seriously injured another official. At exactly 1 p.m. Harpon was shot dead by a budding policeman in the prefecture's courtyard after Harpon ignored repeated instructions to throw away the knife. The responsible public prosecutor Jean-François Ricard later reported that Harpon had acted "without any nervousness" in carrying out the crime and that he had apparently intended to die in the execution. Ricard also certified the perpetrator an "extremely violent approach".
Consequences and accusation of cover-up
France's Interior Minister Christophe Castaner had spoken of a “workplace drama” at a press conference after the crime and suggested tensions between the later perpetrator Harpon and his superior as a motive. This was due to the fact that Harpon saw no opportunities for advancement due to his hearing impairment. In addition, Harpon "never showed any abnormal behavior or the slightest alarm symptom". After the alleged lack of alert symptoms was proven false, Castaner said he only had information from Harpon's employee file. However, this did not contain any relevant information. Much more were even "good reviews" noted. It was only through corresponding press reports about Harpon's radicalization that he became aware of them and contacted the prefecture, which then informed him of Harpon's approval of the Charlie Hebdo attack.
After Castaner's false statements, the opposition demanded his resignation and alleged cover-up. Police colleagues of the perpetrator reported in the French tabloid " Le Parisien " that they had been subjected to pressure not to give investigators warnings such as Harpon's approval of terrorism. They did so anyway, but insisted that the relevant statements not be included in the interrogation protocol.
The fact that Harpon was deployed in the police intelligence department, the "Intelligence Directorate" caused a stir. Among other things, this is responsible for covert investigations and has the private addresses of all police officers. The head of the "Research Center for Intelligence", Alain Rodier, asked the question whether the perpetrator might have worked as a mole for jihadists . "The files of the police prefecture are extremely valuable targets for IS, " he said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche , referring to the Islamist-motivated murder of a pair of police officers at their home address in Magnanville . After the fact, "USB memory sticks with data from dozens of work colleagues" were found in Harpon's apartment.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d He kissed women on the cheek and shone with good grades. Die Welt, October 6, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019 .
- ↑ BFM TV: Attaque à la préfecture de police de Paris: qu'est-ce-que la DRPP, le service de renseignement où travaillait Michael Harpon? October 4, 2019, accessed October 11, 2019 (French).
- ↑ Castaner admits mistakes. FAZ, October 6, 2019, accessed on October 8, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c d Interior Minister allegedly played down a possible terrorist attack. The West, October 6, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Investigators find IS propaganda in the apartment of the Paris attacker. Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 8, 2019, accessed on October 8, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c “Follow our beloved prophet!” Cicero , October 7, 2019, accessed on August 8, 2019 .
- ↑ Cover- up on highest orders? FAZ, October 5, 2019, accessed on October 8, 2019 .
- ↑ Tuerie à la préfecture de police: pourquoi la piste terroriste est privilégiée. In: leparisien.fr . October 4, 2019, accessed October 6, 2019 . .