The vehicle owner – who officials said was on an intelligence services watchlist of people suspected of religious radicalisation – was arrested but later released because he had gone to police on Sunday to report that his daughter had disappeared with his auto.
Advertisement
The auto owner, who is on the intelligence services watchlist for radicalisation, was taken into custody earlier this week but later released due to lack of evidence.
Four people – two brothers and their girlfriends – were already in custody over the discovery.
Police sources said no detonator had been found in the auto, though the vehicle also contained three jerry cans of diesel fuel.
According to the Guardian, Florence Berthout, the mayor of Paris’s fifth arrondissement, said earlier this week that the Notre Dame auto incident highlighted the need to increase security in the French capital. The suspect’s auto, a Peugeot 607, was left by the Notre Dame cathedral.
The first couple, a 34-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, were arrested on a motorway in southern France and are known to the security services for links to radical Islamists.
Another official, who also can not be identified when speaking about the investigation, said Madani had pulled a knife during the raid outside a small apartment building near the Boussy-Saint-Antoine train station.
The man’s brother and his girlfriend, both aged 26, were arrested late Wednesday, the source said.
The vehicle had been abandoned in a no-parking zone with its hazard lights on, and without its registration plates. A gas canister was found on the front seat with six others in the trunk, along with three bottles of gasoline.
“If it was an attack plot, the method was very unusual”, a police source said Thursday.
“France is confronted with a terrorist threat of unprecedented scale”, Mr Cazeneuve said.
Sunday’s discovery of the Peugeot 607 laden with seven gas cylinders triggered a terrorism investigation and revived fears about further attacks in a country where Islamist militants have killed more than 230 people since January 2015.
The priest’s killing followed a string of violent attacks across Europe, some claimed by the Sunni terror group ISIS, including the Bastille Day attack in Nice.
France has been on high alert after a series of attacks in France in November a year ago and July.
Advertisement
In May, the head of France’s DGSI domestic intelligence service, Patrick Calvar, warned of a “new form of attack” in which explosive devices would be left near sites that attract large crowds.
