Once again, the police are touched in their flesh, attacked in their own premises, a disastrous Friday. Only one month after the death of Stéphanie Monfeture, administrative agent of the police station of Rambouillet (Yvelines), Katell L., a 47-year-old municipal policewoman stationed in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre (Loire-Atlantique), was struck by several stabbing this Friday morning by a man described as "schizophrenic and radicalized". Ndiaga Dieye, born in Saint-Nazaire in 1981, then opened fire and shot and wounded two gendarmes after a hunt lasting nearly three hours. Targeted by retaliatory fire from the military, he succumbed to his injuries.
The assailant's death leaves speculation on the motivations of this seasoned delinquent, imprisoned several times, notably for armed robberies, but never for acts of a terrorist nature. His rigorous practice of Islam had nevertheless attracted the attention of the prison administration, which had noted his propensity to sleep on the floor of his cell or to express himself with a radical vocabulary - he used in particular the term of " kouffar ”(disbelievers) to designate non-Muslims. This is why Ndiaga Dieye had been registered in the File of alerts for the prevention of terrorist radicalization (FSPRT) since 2016, but was not listed S. The thirty-something had also been diagnosed with severe schizophrenia during his imprisonment.He was released from Nantes remand center on March 22 after serving a sentence for assaulting prison guards during an escape attempt seven years ago. He was since followed by a specialized association and was the subject of injunctions of care which he scrupulously respected.
VIDEO. A police officer attacked with a knife near Nantes, the suspect on file for radicalization
Living less than a kilometer from the municipal police premises of this town of 20,000 inhabitants, in accommodation that the penitentiary integration and probation service had found for him, Ndiaga Dieye came to reception shortly after 9 a.m. of the post, which employs three officers. He pretended to have a car problem before stabbing Katell L. several times in the thigh. "She knew how to defend herself, is injured in the legs, but her life is not in danger", according to Fabrice Roussel, the mayor of the town. The municipal police officer on the ground, Ndiaga Dieye seizes her handgun - a six-shot revolver - threatens two colleagues of Katell P. before stabbing the bulletproof vest of a third official. His blade breaks. He then fled aboard a gray and black Golf.A few tens of meters further on, he rushes into the background and has an accident. The man then decides to escape on foot.
Two wounded gendarmies
An intense hunt began then carried out by 250 gendarmes, including the GIGN. Seized of the investigations, the investigators of the research section (SR) of Nantes initially envisage the implication of an Ethiopian, who had been arrested a few weeks ago for "apologia for terrorism" and threatened the police in the area. same sector. But it is Ndiaga Dieye who is finally identified thanks to the registration of his car. According to the investigation, for 2 hours 30, the assailant hides in the private apartment of a woman who lives in a residence behind the gendarmerie brigade of Chapelle-sur-Erdre. He sequesters the resident then goes to his balcony to shoot twice with the revolver of the municipal policewoman on the gendarmes on duty in front of the brigade. Shortly after 1 p.m., he left the apartment,walks into a nearby field then engages in a clash with mobile gendarmes by emptying the last four bullets from his magazine. He manages to injure two soldiers in the arm and in the hand. One of the two comes out miraculously: a bullet lodges in his bulletproof vest. Ndiada Dieye is finally shot dead by the gendarmes. Hit in the stomach, he died during his transport to hospital despite attempts at resuscitation.he died during his transport to hospital despite attempts at resuscitation.he died during his transport to hospital despite attempts at resuscitation.
Why did the assailant embark on such an ultra-violent journey?
This Friday evening, after a first legal analysis, the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (PNAT) has decided for the moment not to take up the investigation, leaving the reins of the investigations for "attempted murders and kidnapping" to the Nantes prosecutor's office and to the SR gendarmes.
Not ruling out changing their decision in the coming days, the anti-terrorism magistrates were awaiting the return of the hearings of the victims - the municipal policewoman and the kidnapped woman, who could not yet be heard because of their state of health - as well as analyzes of the phones and tablets seized during the search of Dieye's home in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre.
A very heavy psychiatric profile
At this stage, no jihadist claim - oral or written - has been highlighted. Ndiada Dieye would not have uttered "Allah Akbar" while taking action. "The author had a very heavy psychiatric profile of schizophrenia with strong phases of decompensation," confides a source close to the investigation. All the radical phases that have been detected in the past were correlated with psychiatric phases. He had been prescribed heavy treatment. ”This deadline for evaluating the anti-terrorism justice system to analyze the attack had already been seen in another file combining religion and psychiatry: the Villejuif attack (one death, January 2020) perpetrated by a young man diagnosed with schizophrenia but a follower of an ultra-rigorous Islam.The question is therefore to know if it is the serious pathology - proven - or the will to respond to jihadist propaganda that guided the hand of Ndiaga Dieye.
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However, some politicians did not wait for the aggressor's motivations to be clarified to seize the case and an intense political debate very quickly took precedence over the emotion aroused by Katell L's injury. Thus, Marine Le Pen wondered on Twitter: "How could an individual known for radicalization, known for wanting to attack the police (
Editor's note: what nothing establishes at this stage
), could he be?" outside, free to harm?
"
However, counterterrorism operatives have not stopped repeating for several years that the S or FSPRT files are intelligence tools making it possible to collect discreet follow-up information and not a guilt tool allowing imprisonment. "He had served his sentence (...) and was the subject of a socio-judicial follow-up which he respected", moreover very quickly specified the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, in order to rule out any idea of "Flaws" in the support of Ndiaga Dieye.