French police shot and killed a Sudanese national who had attempted to attack passengers on a Paris tram with a butcher knife in the early hours of Saturday morning.
A 40-year-old man from the nation of Sudan dressed in a North African djellaba robe and carrying a “notebook with Arabic inscriptions” in one hand and brandishing a butcher’s blade in the other was shot and killed by Paris police at around 3 am on Saturday morning, Le Figaro reports.
According to police info, the Sudanese man had asked a fellow traveller on the train for a lighter and when he was refused, the 40-year-old took out a meat cleaver from his Moroccan dress and began attempting to attack the passenger.
The passenger was able to evade the attacks and quickly notified the police. The Paris prosecutor’s office said that officers discovered the African “holding a butcher’s blade in one hand and a notebook with Arabic inscriptions in the other”.
While police ordered him to throw down his weapon, the Sudanese man refused to comply and only responded with “words in Arabic”.
Officers initially used tasers on the knifeman, however, he was undeterred and attempted to rush officers from the railway brigade with the knife. At this point police opened fire on the attacker, firing off around twenty rounds, one of which shot the Sudanese man through the head, killing him on the spot.
The local prosecutor’s office has opened two investigations, including one for “attempted intentional homicide against a person holding public authority” against the deceased attacker and another against the officers who killed the knifeman for “intentional violence by police officers leading to death”.
The incident came just days after another knife attack at a Paris train station, during which a Malian man stabbed three people. Although he reportedly confessed to wishing to “attack French people” and had previously expressed anger about France’s colonial history in Africa, authorities have chosen not to treat the attack as an act of terrorism.