Paris Orly airport shooting: Man shot dead by French police after seizing gun from soldier

Terminal evacuated and air traffic suspended after shooting on Saturday morning.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-orly-airport-man-shot-seize-gun-police-evacuation-terror-alert-latest-injuries-security-a7636416.html

Police probe shooting just before Orly attack.

PARIS (AP) — Paris police are investigating whether an attack on a soldier at Orly Airport is linked to a shooting earlier Saturday north of Paris.

The Paris police office says a man fired at police officers with a gun that fired birdshot, wounding one in the face, when stopped for a police traffic check early Saturday morning. The man then fled, threatening a motorist with a weapon to steal her car.

Police say that car was later found close to the Orly Airport. The traffic stop was at 6:55 a.m., shortly before the attack at Orly.

Paris police say a police officer was shot and injured during a road check in the town of Stains northeast of Paris on Saturday.

The national police official says so far there is no sign of any link between the Orly incident and the Stains shooting.

http://news.sky.com/story/terror-watchlist-suspect-shoots-police-officer-before-launching-paris-airport-attack-10805781

Paris Orly Airport shooting: Attacker was on terror watchlist
Police confirm a terror watchlist suspect shot a policewoman before launching an attack on a soldier at a Paris airport.

A radicalised Muslim on a terror watchlist opened fire on three police officers at a road check before attacking a soldier at a Paris airport.

The gunman launched his first attack after being stopped at a road check north of the city early this morning, shooting a policewoman in the head.

He then held up a woman motorist at gunpoint, stealing her car and driving to Orly airport.

In the airport terminal the attacker assaulted a patrol of three counter-terrorism soldiers, wrestling one of them to the floor and trying to take her gun......etc.

Tests find drugs, alcohol in blood of Paris airport attacker

PARIS (AP) — Blood tests determined Sunday that a suspected Islamic extremist consumed drugs and alcohol before a frenzied spree of violence that ended when he took a soldier hostage at Paris' Orly Airport and was shot dead by her fellow patrolmen.

The Paris prosecutors' office said toxicology tests conducted as part of an autopsy found traces of cocaine and cannabis in the blood of the suspect, Ziyed Ben Belgacem. He also had 0.93 grams of alcohol per liter of blood when he died Saturday, the prosecutors' office said. That is nearly twice the legal limit for driving in France.

The 39-year-old Frenchman with a long criminal record of drugs and robbery offences stopped at a bar in the wee hours Saturday morning, around four hours before he first fired bird shot at traffic police. Then, 90 minutes later, he attacked the military patrol at Orly, causing panic and the shutdown of the French capital's second-biggest airport.

Yelling that he wanted to kill and die for Allah, Belgacem wrestled away a soldier's assault rifle but was shot to death by two other soldiers before he could fire the military-grade weapon in Orly's busy South Terminal, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.

In an interview Sunday with French radio Europe 1, a man identified as the suspect's father said Belgacem wasn't a practicing Muslim and drank alcohol. "My son was never a terrorist. He never attended prayer. He drank. But under the effects of alcohol and cannabis, this is where one ends up," said the father. Europe 1 did not give his name.

The father was released from police custody overnight Saturday. Belgacem's brother and a cousin were released later Sunday. Belgacem called his father and brother early Saturday morning, minutes after he fired at a police traffic patrol, injuring an officer in the face, to say that he had made a stupid mistake, according to Molins, the prosecutor.

"He called me at seven, eight in the morning and said, 'There you go, Papa.' He was extremely angry, even his mother couldn't understand him," the man identified as the father said on Europe 1. "He told me: 'I ask for your forgiveness. I've screwed up with a gendarme.'"

A subsequent police search of Belgacem's flat found cocaine, Molins said. Belgacem had been flagged as having been radicalized during a spell in detention in 2011-2012, Molins said. His house was among dozens searched in November 2015 in the immediate aftermath of suicide bomb-and-gun attacks that killed 130 people in Paris.

The Orly attack forced both of the airport's terminals to shut down and evacuate, sent passengers and workers fleeing in panic and trapped hundreds of others aboard planes that had just landed. According to the soldiers, the attacker yelled: "Put down your weapons! Put your hands on your head! I am here to die for Allah. Whatever happens, there will be deaths," Molins said.

The drama, which caused no injuries except for the light wound to the traffic police officer, further rattled France, which remains under a state of emergency after attacks the past two years that have killed 235 people.

"My son was never a terrorist. He never attended prayer. He drank. But under the effects of alcohol and cannabis, this is where one ends up," said the father.

Bollox.

The crazies are told that if they die for their flying-horse god, preferably taking a few of us infidels with them, then all their sins are forgiven, and they get especially-lovely virgins.

It's a bit like Catholic confession taken to the bloodiest conclusion possible.