Notre Dame attacker charged with terrorism

An Algerian man who was shot after attacking a policeman with a hammer at the Notre Dame cathedral last week was charged by a French court with terrorism.

Judiciary sources told Efe news that Farid Ikken, 40, was charged on Saturday with attempted terrorist homicide of a person vested with public authority, and with criminal association for extremist purposes.

Prosecutor Francois Molins told the media that Ikken had been radicalized very quickly, alone and by means of the internet.

The first elements of the investigation present Ikken as an individual influenced by propaganda from the Islamic State (IS) terror group, to which he vows his loyalty on a video.

At his home in Cergy on the outskirts of Paris, police found on his computer, his camera and his mobile phone, numerous propaganda documents of that terrorist organisation along with news about the attacks in the French capital in November 2015 and in Brussels in March 2016.

Among them is an "action manual for lone wolves", Molins said, adding that the man describes himself as a "soldier of the caliphate".

Ikken, who was born in 1977 and who wounded the policeman in the neck with a hammer purchased at a supermarket, had decided to take action a few days before doing so.

He was brought down by a colleague of the agent, who shot him in the side.

--IANS

ksk