French investigators had just hours left Tuesday to decide whether to charge a suspect in a high-speed train attack that was foiled by passengers, as it emerged he watched a jihadist video just before boarding.
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However, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office, Ayoub El-Khazzani’s cell phone has been examined, and its history indicates he was watching a jihad video shortly before launching his attack.
He also dismissed as “absurd” claims by the suspect that he found the stash of weapons and mobile phone in a park where he was sleeping rough the night before.
A gunman on a Paris, France bound train from Amsterdam received a sudden and unexpected ambush last Friday as six French, British and American men united to thwart his malicious intentions.
Three Americans & a Briton who subdued the gunman on the train have been awarded the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor, on Monday .
Now that the formal investigation is opened, investigating magistrates are expected to file numerous charges against El-Khazzani, including an attempted terrorism-related attack.
Khazzani, 25, boarded the high-speed train in Brussels on Friday armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Luger automatic pistol, ammunition and a box-cutter. He came to the attention of French intelligence after German officials alerted them of the man’s travel to Syria via Turkey in May.
But the gunman’s explanation grew less and less lucid, Molins said, and the suspect eventually stopped speaking to investigators at all. Stone attended to another wounded passenger in the vehicle , though he himself was seriously hurt.
French train attack suspect Ayoub El-Khazzani. Sadler, Skarlatos, Stone and Chris Norman, a British passenger who also joined the fray, were awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Hollande on Monday.
Two people were injured in Friday’s attack: U.S. Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone and Moogalian, who is hospitalized in northern France with a bullet wound.
Sacramento State President Robert S. Nelsen said eager donors are lining up to help Sadler with scholarship money for his past year studying kinesiology.
It’s not yet clear when Stone will be transferred back to the U.S.
Sacramento’s KCRA-TV showed Sadler, a Sacramento State University student, walking off a commercial plane at Sacramento global Airport, accompanied by his parents. Columbia Sportswear CEO Timothy Boyle had made the jet available to fly the Americans’ mothers to France. He is credited with being the first to tackle the gunman, followed by fellow US military member National Guardsman Skarlatos.
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“Mark is one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever known”, Jacqueline Moogalian-Pittman told The Associated Press.
