MARSEILLE: French prosecutors on Wednesday said that a man who wounded five people before being shot dead by police in the southern port of Marseille was “not radicalized” but suffering from “psychiatric disorders.”
Abdelkader Dibi, a 35-year-old Tunisian, stabbed several people on Tuesday at a hotel that had evicted him for non-payment, then attacked several others on a busy shopping street.
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office would not handle the case even though the man shouted “Allah akbar” (God is great) several times before being shot by police, Marseille public prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told reporters.
Bessone said Dibi was screened for possible radicalization after an earlier incident in June when he allegedly made antisemitic comments. “The individual did not appear to be radicalized but was suffering from psychiatric disorders,” the prosecutor said.
Dibi was known for “his violence and his addiction to both cocaine and alcohol,” the prosecutor added, saying he had a conviction for violence with a weapon against a nephew in 2023.
The Tunisian government described the killing of Dibi as an “unjustified murder.” The country’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the French embassy’s charge d’affaire to present a “strong protest.”
Three victims stabbed during Tuesday’s attack are out of danger, including a person who shared a room with Dibi and was stabbed in the heart.
A police patrol intervened and ordered Dibi to drop his weapons, but opened fire when he refused, the prosecutor said.
Marseille knife attacker ‘not radicalized’: French prosecutors
https://arab.news/4k2bp
Marseille knife attacker ‘not radicalized’: French prosecutors
- Abdelkader Dibi, a 35-year-old Tunisian, stabbed several people on Tuesday at a hotel that had evicted him for non-payment
- Police said Dibi was suffering from “psychiatric disorders” and was known “his violence and his addiction to both cocaine and alcohol”
US lawmaker Fine criticized by rights advocates, Democrats after anti-Muslim remarks
- Fine’s past comments include calling for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the US, labeling of Muslims as “terrorists” and the mocking of the starvation and killing of Palestinians in Gaza, among others
WASHINGTON: Rights advocates and multiple Democrats on Tuesday condemned anti-Muslim comments by Republican US Representative Randy Fine who said on Sunday that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Fine, whose comments against Muslims have often sparked outrage, has dismissed the criticism and since doubled down on his remarks on social media. The Council on American-Islamic Relations designated the Republican US lawmaker from Florida as an anti-Muslim extremist last year.
“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” Fine said on X on Sunday in a post that had over 40 million views as of Tuesday afternoon.
Some high-profile Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom called for him to resign while House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Fine an “Islamophobic, disgusting and unrepentant bigot.”
Jeffries also called for Republicans — who hold a majority in both chambers of Congress — to hold Fine accountable.
“To ignore this is to accept and normalize it,” Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. Fine’s past comments include calling for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the US, labeling of Muslims as “terrorists” and the mocking of the starvation and killing of Palestinians in Gaza, among others. Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia in the US in recent years due to a range of factors including hard-line immigration policies and white-supremacist rhetoric, as well as the fallout of Israel’s war in Gaza on American society.
