The knife that savagely injured children, including a British girl in eastern France, appeared in public today for the first time since the attack – in a medical chair and surrounded by police.
The self-proclaimed Syrian-Christian Abdelmasih Hanoun, 31, was taken from a secure police station in Annecy to the city’s courthouse on Saturday morning.
There he was to appear before a judge, who was to charge him with a series of offenses related to Thursday’s attacks.
“Hanoun left the police station shortly after 10 a.m., with four officers carrying his chair,” a source in charge of the investigation said.
“The chair is a medical chair normally used by firefighters to pull injured people out of burning buildings.”
Self-proclaimed Syrian-Christian Abdelmasih Hanoun, 31, was taken from a secure police station in Annecy to the city’s courthouse on Saturday morning.
He was carried in a medical chair after he was shot dead by French police during his arrest
Abdelmasih Hanoun, 31, pictured, is accused of assaulting four children and two adults
Hanoun had his head tilted back and seemed barely conscious.
He himself was injured by police after the attack, when video footage caught him saying the words “In the name of Jesus Christ” as he repeatedly plunged a knife into four children and two adults.
They included three-year-old British daughter Ettie Turner and three younger children, as well as two adults.
All were “stable” on Saturday and recovering well, with Ettie well enough to watch TV.
Also targeted are two French cousins named Ennio and Alba, both aged two, and Peter, a 22-month-old Dutch boy.
The two adults who were attacked were Manuel, 70, and Yusuf, 78, who was also mistakenly hit by a police bullet.
Despite being a failed asylum seeker who faced deportation, Hanoun had to sleep rough in Annecy.
A source who works on a lakeside pontoon on Lake Annecy said he saw Hanoun’ every day for two months before the attack.
The source said: ‘He was dressed in black – black backpack, dark glasses, bearded and he wore a headdress to protect him from the sun – it could be a t-shirt, it was not a religious sign.’
Tributes were left at the scene where the attack took place, including a balloon that read Love For the Children
Line Bonnet-Mathis, the Annecy prosecutor who is leading the investigation into the crimes, confirmed that Hanoun “will appear before a judge on Saturday”.
Line Bonnet-Mathis, the Annecy prosecutor who is leading the investigation into the crimes, confirmed that Hanoun “will appear before a judge on Saturday”.
Hanoun “had tantrums” in custody and “provided no motive for the attacks”.
The divorced father of a three-year-old girl was refused asylum in France six days ago and faced deportation.
Despite this, there were no immediate attempts to expel him from the country or monitor his movements.
Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said it was a ‘disturbing coincidence’, adding: ‘For poorly explained reasons, he had requested asylum in Switzerland, Italy and France’ .
Hanoun arrived in Sweden 10 years ago, after serving in the Syrian army during the country’s ongoing civil war.
He married a Swedish woman he had met in Turkey, and they had a daughter, now aged three, before the couple split around eight months ago.
Hanoun was twice denied Swedish citizenship, which reportedly motivated him to settle in France on his own.
The multiple stabbings follow a string of similar crimes in France dating back to 2015, most linked to Islamist terrorism.
