Driver ploughs into pedestrians in France’s second ‘Allahu Akbar’ attack
A driver yelling “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) plowed into pedestrians, injuring 11 of them, Sunday in Dijon, a city in central France. This comes a day after a man shouting the same words was killed in an attack on police officers in another French town.
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“The man, born in 1974, appears to be unbalanced and is under treatment in a psychiatric hospital” but his motives “are still unclear,” a source close to the investigation told AFP.
The forty-year-old man known to police for petty offences dating back to the 1990s was arrested after a high speed chase, according to police sources.
“Around 8 pm, a vehicle deliberately ploughed into passersby in several areas of the city,” the French Ministry of Interior said in a statement.
Witnesses told police that the man, wearing a djellaba, “shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ and said he was acting for the children of Palestine”.
Only judicial investigations will allow to “determine the exact motives of this action,” the Ministry of the Interior said.
The minister of the Interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, is expected to visit Dijon Monday.
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