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Freed After Terror Conviction, He Went On to Kill in France Killing Twice for ISIS and Saying So Live on Facebook
(about 4 hours later)
PARIS — A 25-year-old Frenchman who fatally stabbed a police officer and his companion at their home in a suburb of Paris on Monday, an attack quickly claimed by the Islamic State, was detained from 2011 to 2013 for involvement in a terrorist network that aspired to be active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the authorities said on Tuesday. PARIS — He stabbed an off-duty police officer and left him bleeding to death on his own doorstep. He forced his way inside the home, and stabbed and killed the officer’s female companion. He then sat down and videotaped himself live on Facebook declaring allegiance to the Islamic State, according to the French law enforcement authorities.
At a news conference, the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, offered new details about the brutal killings and an ensuing standoff that lasted nearly four hours, ending when the police stormed the house, mortally wounding the assailant. Sitting just behind him was the couple’s son, a terrified 3-year-old boy, of whom Larossi Abballa, the killer, said dismissively, “I have not decided what to do with him,” according to David Thomson, a French journalist for Radio France Internationale and the author of a book on jihadists who saw Mr. Abballa’s online posts before they were taken down.
The killings shook France, which has been on high alert since two major terrorist attacks last year and is struggling with the security challenges posed by the European Championship soccer tournament. They occurred just one day after a rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., by a gunman who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State, left 49 people dead. And they raised new concerns about radicalization, as the assailant in France, identified as Larossi Abballa, was a French citizen who had been convicted and sentenced for terrorism-related activities. The events that unfolded between about 8 p.m. and just before midnight on Monday, when elite police forces broke into the house in the small town of Magnanville, shot Mr. Abballa, 25, and rescued the little boy, highlighted once again the daunting challenges facing law enforcement authorities in tracking what they describe as lone wolves — even those they have encountered before — who self-identify with terrorist networks.
The assault began between 8 and 8:20 p.m. on Monday, when Mr. Abballa fatally stabbed a police officer outside his home in Magnanville, a village about 35 miles west of Paris, according to Mr. Molins said. The officer, 42, worked in Les Mureaux, a town where Mr. Abballa had lived. The attack outside Paris on Monday night was the second within 48 hours in which a person appearing to act alone claimed to kill in the name of the Islamic State. The first was in Orlando, Fla., where 49 people were fatally shot in a gay nightclub early on Sunday.
Mr. Abballa then entered the house and held hostage the officer’s companion, a 36-year-old woman who worked at a police station in the nearby small city of Mantes-la-Jolie, and the couple’s 3-year-old son, before Mr. Abballa fatally stabbed her. In both instances, the killers had more than just brushed up against the authorities before, in what has become a distressingly familiar pattern — from the set of attacks in Paris in November, to those in Brussels in March and beyond. The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, had been interviewed twice by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his possible links to terrorism, and Mr. Abballa had been convicted for having links to a terrorist network and served about two years in jail before being released.
A neighbor summoned the authorities, who included members of an elite police unit. According to Mr. Molins, Mr. Abballa told the police that he was a Muslim observing Ramadan; a supporter of the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; and that he was following an injunction by Mr. Baghdadi to “kill the infidels at home with their families.” Further complicating the job of protecting Western nations are governments’ dual goal of preserving civil liberties while trying to make people feel secure.
Mr. Abballa then broke off communications with the police. At some point during his time in the house, he turned his attention to social media. At 8:52 p.m., Mr. Molins said, Mr. Abballa posted a 12-minute video to more than 100 contacts, claiming responsibility for the attacks. He also posted two messages on Twitter from an account he opened last Wednesday. The attack in France was shocking not only to neighbors in Magnanville, about 35 miles from Paris, but across the country, because it underscored that extremist attacks can happen in the most ordinary places, above all in those where people believe they are safe.
Members of the elite police unit, known as RAID, stormed the home around midnight, fatally wounding Mr. Abballa and rescuing the child, who Mr. Molins said was traumatized but physically unharmed. Mr. Abballa’s Facebook post from Monday night made clear that he wanted to terrify and destroy those he deemed “unbelievers,” people he had come to hate. He also wanted to encourage other lone wolves to do the same.
Inside the home, investigators found a list of possible targets — including rappers, journalists, police officials and other public figures — along with three phones, and several knives, including one with blood on it. In a parked car nearby, investigators found a Quran; a djellaba, a long robe commonly worn in North Africa; and two religious texts. “It’s super simple,” he said, looking into the camera. “It’s enough to wait for them in front of their offices, don’t give them any respite. Know this, whether you are a policeman or a journalist, you will never feel calm again. One will wait for you in front of your homes. This is what you have earned.”
Magnanville, where the victims lived, and Les Mureaux and Mantes-la-Jolie, where the victims worked, are all part of the Yvelines administrative department in the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris. Mr. Abballa was born in Meulan-en-Yvelines, also in that department. Boasting that he had “just killed a policeman and I just killed his wife,” he called on fellow believers to give priority to killing “police, prison guards, journalists.” He specifically named several writers and journalists, adding rappers to the list because, he said, they “are the allies of Satan.”
Mr. Abballa was one of eight men convicted in Paris in 2013 of aiding a group that intended to commit terrorist acts and that had planned to go to Pakistan for training. Even more chillingly, he warned that jihadists had “reserved some other surprises for the EURO, I am not going to say more.’’
He was given a three-year sentence on Sept. 30, 2013, including a six-month suspended sentence. His sentence was further reduced, a common practice in France, by the fact that he had been in detention since May 14, 2011. “The EURO will be a cemetery,” he said, referring to the EURO 2016 soccer tournament being played over the next several weeks in 10 French cities.
Although Mr. Abballa was released immediately after his trial, he was under surveillance for an additional two years and two months, until Nov. 30, 2015, Mr. Molins said. It was unclear whether Mr. Abballa had specific knowledge of a potential attack on the matches or the crowds gathered for them.
The version of the video released by the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency was trimmed by a couple of minutes to omit images of the boy and Mr. Abballa’s references to him. On Twitter, opinion was divided between those who thought the images of a defenseless child were tasteless even by the standards of the Islamic State’s hardened propagandists, and those who speculated that the extremist news agency did not want to show Mr. Abballa as unwilling to kill a child.
As the special police forces surrounded the murdered officer’s house, where Mr. Abballa was holed up, cordoning off the modest neighborhood that is home to both non-Muslims and Muslims, Mr. Abballa asked his “brothers” to pray to Allah that he might become a martyr.
The video was posted a little before 9 p.m. on Monday as the police began to try to negotiate with him.
By the time the security forces reached the couple’s son three hours later, he was in a “stunned” state as people are after a profound shock, said Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister.
Many questions remain about Mr. Abballa’s path from his birth and early life in nearby Meulan, France, as the child of parents of Moroccan origin, to his death at the hands of a police SWAT team. Along the way he spent time in prison and proselytized to other prisoners about Islam, said François Molins, the Paris prosecutor.
When he was released, he started a small fast food business, which he named Dr. Food. It delivered sandwiches, according to a Facebook clip he posted.
He was one of eight men convicted in Paris in 2013 of aiding a group that had been intending to commit terrorist acts and had planned to go to Pakistan for training.
He received a three-year sentence on Sept. 30, 2013, including a six-month suspended sentence. He was allowed to go free after his conviction, because he had spent two years and two months in jail awaiting trial.
However, he was under surveillance for another two years and two months, until Nov. 30, 2015, said Mr. Molins, the prosecutor.
“At the trial, Abballa seemed like someone who was not dangerous but was rather stupid,” said Hervé Denis, a lawyer who represented Zohab Ifzar, one of the other defendants.“At the trial, Abballa seemed like someone who was not dangerous but was rather stupid,” said Hervé Denis, a lawyer who represented Zohab Ifzar, one of the other defendants.
Mr. Abballa had been unemployed at the time of his arrest, Mr. Denis said. The officer killed on Monday had nothing to do with the investigation that resulted in Mr. Abballa’s imprisonment, Mr. Denis said.
The police officer killed on Monday had nothing to do with the investigation that resulted in Mr. Abballa’s imprisonment, and Mr. Abballa never carried out his plan to go to Pakistan, although he had wanted to, Mr. Denis said. “He appeared to be the perfect soldier,” Mr. Denis said — someone who would do whatever was needed to help the effort — and “very determined.”
“He appeared to be the perfect soldier,” Mr. Denis said — someone who would do whatever was needed to help the effort — and he was “very determined.” More recently, Mr. Abballa came to the attention of the French law enforcement authorities when he was among several people questioned in a counterrorism inquiry that Mr. Molins’s office began on Feb. 11 into a group believed to be planning to go to Syria.
Mr. Abballa was one target of a counterterrorism inquiry that Mr. Molins’s office began on Feb. 11, which focused on a conspiracy to commit terrorism. As part of that inquiry, investigators gathered intelligence from telephone intercepts and various geocoding technologies, but none of the findings indicated that Mr. Abballa was on the verge of violence, Mr. Molins said.
As part of that inquiry, investigators have gathered intelligence from telephone intercepts and various geocoding technologies, but that intelligence did not indicate that Mr. Abballa was on the verge of violence. Three men in Mr. Abballa’s circle — ages 27, 29 and 44 — were detained for questioning after the killings on Monday.
Three men in Mr. Abballa’s circle — ages 27, 29 and 44 — have been arrested and held for questioning. The attack in Magnanville has already prompted calls in France for more stringent handling of those convicted of terrorism-related activities.
The attack in Magnanville has prompted calls in France for more stringent handling of those convicted of terrorism-related activities. On early morning broadcasts on Tuesday, some members of Parliament called for all people suspected of potential terrorist leanings to be placed in detention.
On early-morning broadcasts on Tuesday, some members of Parliament called for all people suspected of terrorist leanings to be placed in detention. But France is already stretched to the limit, both in prison capacity and in the numbers of suspects it can monitor. The police and intelligence agencies are described as working constantly to track would-be jihadists.
However, France is already stretched to the limit, both in prison capacity and in the numbers of suspects it can keep track of. The police and intelligence agencies are said to be working constantly to keep up with numerous would-be jihadists. The antiterrorism directorate of the judicial police and of the internal security department of the Interior Ministry have detained 100 people this year over their suspected ties to terrorism, Mr. Cazeneuve, the interior minister, said on Tuesday. He added that the terrorism threat in France was “very high.”
The antiterrorism directorate of the judicial police and of the internal security department of the Interior Ministry have detained 100 people this year on suspicions of links to terrorism, Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, said early Tuesday. He added that the terrorism threat in France was “high.” In testimony before members of the French Parliament on May 10, Patrick Calvar, head of domestic intelligence, said that about 2,000 French citizens or residents were of concern to the security forces.
In testimony before members of the French Parliament on May 10, Patrick Calvar, the head of domestic intelligence, said that about 2,000 French citizens or residents were of concern to the security forces.
He testified that at least 645 French citizens or residents of France were in Syria, and that about 400 of those were participating in military operations.He testified that at least 645 French citizens or residents of France were in Syria, and that about 400 of those were participating in military operations.
An additional 201 French citizens or residents are in transit, either traveling to Syria or returning to France from Syria or from Iraq, and 173 are presumed dead, Mr. Calvar said, adding that the number of dead was probably higher. In addition, Mr. Calvar said, 244 French citizens have returned to France from Syria or Iraq, and the French intelligence services say they have identified an additional 818 people who they believe want to join extremists.
In addition, 244 French citizens have returned to France from Syria or Iraq, and the French intelligence services say they have identified an additional 818 people who they believe want to join extremists. The French authorities have repeatedly said that it was impossible to monitor all of them at all times.
The French authorities have repeatedly said that it is impossible to monitor all of them round the clock.