This 47-year-old man was known to police and suffer from “psychiatric problems”, depending on the floor. The national anti-terrorist floor has not grabbed the case, entrusted to the judicial police of Toulouse.
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It should only have a few hours at the judicial police of Toulouse to interpel, Friday, April 8, a man suspected of having deposited an “explosive” craft in the Cathedral Saint-Etienne de Toulouse, in the early morning . It was placed in custody at the beginning of the afternoon, confirms the world the Toulouse Attorney, Samuel Vuelta Simon.
Known police services for drunken driving, contempt of agent, use of narcotics, this 47-year-old man had already been questioned, according to the prosecution, in other cases and twice declared Criminal irresponsible, because of “psychiatric problems”. The national anti-terrorist floor did not grab the case and the investigation was entrusted to the judicial police of Toulouse.
The facts took place around 8:30 while the daily mass followed under the high vaults of the St. Etienne Cathedral, eleven days before Easter and two days before the first round of the presidential election. “A man has entered with a parcel under his arm during the communion, I took it for a delivery man. He crossed the nave and deposited the package in front of the marches of the altar. He jostled me, he has says something incomprehensible and he’s gone, “says the sacristan, Aurrelian Dreux.
No” Fire Device “
The sacristan immediately asked the faithful to evacuate the places. “Father Jean-Jacques Rouchy, who celebrated this Mass, went to warn police officers in front of the prefecture,” said Father Simon d’Artigue, a cure of the cathedral, which adjoins the region’s prefecture. “There were about forty people present”, details Artigue’s father.
Very quickly, the neighborhood was closed by forces of order in numbers. In the cathedral, the deminers discovered two parcels placed at the foot of the altar. One of them contained an explosive gear qualified as “very amateur”. Depending on the parquet, “one of the bags contained well hydrochloric acid and aluminum, without a firing device. Products that can be easily found in the trade”.
Very quickly, images of video surveillance have been published by the dispatch of the Midi, showing the fleeing man, carrying a gray cap and a clear surgical mask, and dressed in a black parka and a blue jeans. It was arrested shortly after, around 1:30 pm
In a statement, the Archbishop of Toulouse, Guy de Kerimel, condemned “firmly this act” and “regrets that a place of prayer and his faithful are targeted by an explosive machine”. He called Catholics to “celebrate holy week with confidence”.
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