After 48 hours in police custody and a stint in the psychiatric infirmary of the Paris police headquarters, Kassogue S. will be presented to a judge this Tuesday for indictment.
The 32-year-old Malian was arrested on Saturday morning after injuring three people at Lyon station.
At 7:30 a.m., the assailant stabbed a man in the abdomen and two hammer blows to the head.
Sunday evening, his vital prognosis was
“still engaged”
, according to the public prosecutor.
Two other people were injured, one of them released from hospital on Saturday evening.
“Initial elements, which remain to be confirmed, would reveal that the suspect first set fire to his backpack”
before attacking station users, the prosecution said on Saturday.
The man
“was first overpowered by passers-by”
before the intervention of the Suge, the SNCF railway police, who then handed him over to the police, detailed a police source, specifying that the man
“would not have shouted during his action”
.
Before the judicial police investigators, the thirty-year-old confessed his intention to
“kill people”
but his motive remains unclear.
“Africa must never forgive France”
Unknown to the police, Kassogue S. entered France legally thanks to a residence permit obtained in 2019 in Italy allowing him to travel within the European Union.
He is presented as a
“non-radicalized practicing Muslim”.
As such, it is not included in the Reports File for the Prevention of Terrorist Radicalization (FSPRT).
In the hours following his arrest, the police became interested in a TikTok account, opened in the name of the attacker, on which there appears a black man with glasses, bearded and close-cropped hair.
On one of the videos, dated December 2, 2023, the author of the account wrote this enigmatic message:
“RIP
(rest in peace, Editor's note) in three months, may Allah welcome me to his paradise”
.
In other videos, he expresses his resentment towards France, referring to the French military intervention in Mali, with the words:
“Africa must never forgive France.”
While in police custody, Kassogue S. once again castigated
France's
“colonial past” .
Psychiatric disorders
The man told investigators that he suffered from psychiatric disorders.
Before arriving in France,
“he was in the province of Turin where he was receiving treatment in a mental health center
,” the press service of the Italian national police said on Sunday.
Medicines were found on him, as was an appointment ticket for a consultation at Turin hospital.
In view of a
“psychiatric state incompatible with the measure of restraint”,
his police custody was lifted on Saturday evening so that he could be taken to the psychiatric infirmary.
After a night and a morning of medical surveillance, Kassogue S. was taken back into police custody before being referred this Tuesday morning.