There were shootings last Friday at the Kurdish cultural center and a nearby hair salon.
Paris:
France on Monday charged a suspected gunman with the murder of three Kurds in Paris last week, as hundreds marched through the French capital to pay tribute to the victims.
Authorities said the 69-year-old suspect admitted to having a “pathological” hatred of foreigners and spent almost a day in a mental institution before being returned to police custody on Sunday.
A judicial source said the judge charged the man with murder, attempted murder and unauthorized procurement and possession of weapons because of his race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.
Friday’s shootings at a Kurdish cultural center and nearby hair salon sparked panic in the city’s bustling 10th district, which has numerous shops and restaurants and a large Kurdish population.
Three other people were injured in the attack, but none were life-threatening and one has been released from hospital.
Trauma was revived by the violence of three unsolved murders of Kurds in 2013, which many blamed on Turkey.
The community also expressed anger at French security services, saying they were doing too little to stop the shooting.
That frustration boiled over on Saturday, when angry demonstrators clashed with police in central Paris, a second day in a row after a tribute rally.
Hundreds marched in District 10 on Monday, chanting “Our martyrs are not dead” in Kurdish and demanding “truth and justice.”
Small altars with candles, flowers and pictures of the three gun victims lined the sidewalk.
In January 2013, a march marched to another street in the same neighborhood where three militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group considered terrorists by Turkey and its Western allies, were killed.
– ‘scared’ –
Some in the Kurdish community suspect Turkish involvement in Friday’s shooting, but French investigators have yet to issue any statement on that.
“We decided to come as soon as we heard about the terrorist attack on Friday,” a young woman told AFP, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.
“We fear the Turkish community and the secret service.”
Turkey has slammed Paris over protests in France.
Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned the French ambassador on Monday over “anti-Turkish propaganda,” saying French officials had done little to stop it.
Some protesters waved PKK flags, while others held placards accusing Turkey of being a killer state and of links to the shootings.
– History of violence –
The suspect, named by French media as William M., a gun enthusiast with a history of weapons crimes, was released on bail earlier this month.
The retired train driver was convicted of armed violence by a court in Seine-Saint-Denis in 2016, but he appealed.
A year later, he was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm.
The suspect said he initially wanted to kill in the northern Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, which has a large number of migrants.
But he changed his mind because few people were around and his clothes made it difficult for him to reload, prosecutors said of Friday’s shooting.
Then he went back to his parents’ house and decided to go to the tenth district.
Last year he was charged with racist violence for allegedly stabbing migrants and cutting down their tents with a sword in a park east of Paris.
The suspect, described as “depressed” and “suicidal,” admitted to investigators that he had long wanted to kill immigrants and foreigners since a burglary at his home in 2016, Paris prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said a search of his parents’ home, a computer and a smartphone turned up no links to extremist ideology.
The suspect said he got his weapon four years ago from a member of a shooting club, hid it at his parents’ house and never used it before.
Often described as the world’s largest stateless people, the Kurds are a Muslim ethnic group spread across Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
(Aside from the title, this story is unedited by NDTV staff and published via a syndicated feed.)
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