French investigators grill suspect in Louvre attack

French investigators began questioning Sunday a suspect in the attack on soldiers at the Louvre Museum in Paris, but the man refused to speak, a judicial source said. 


The 29-year-old suspect was shot in the stomach and seriously wounded after lunging at the soldiers with two machetes Friday. 


The attack was the latest in a string of assaults in France and thrust the issue of security back into the headlines three months ahead of the French presidential election. 


Investigators decided to question him at his hospital bed after his condition improved, the source said. The man "is refusing to speak to investigators for now," the source said. 


Egyptian officials have identified the suspect as Abdullah al-Hamahmy. French authorities have not named the suspect, but Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said they believe he is an Egyptian national. 


Investigators believe Hamahmy rented an expensive apartment near the Champs Elysées. 


Investigators say the attacker, who was carrying two machetes and wearing a black T-shirt with a skull design, lunged at four soldiers shouting "Allahu Akbar" (“God is greatest”). 


French investigators have contacted Egyptian officials in hopes of confirming the suspect’s identity through DNA testing, a source close to the inquiry said. 


They also plan to contact officials in the UAE and in Turkey, since Hamahmy’s passport had two visas from Turkey, in 2015 and 2016. 


Two Egyptian officials said Sunday that local security agencies were continuing to gather information on Hamahmy to establish whether he was a member of any militant groups or had been radicalized. 


“We are trying to determine whether he was a lone wolf, worked with a group or he is innocent,” said one of the two officials, who is employed by the Interior Ministry. Investigators were examining his social media accounts, he added. 


“His tweets show a radicalized person. He supports Daesh [ISIS] and other extremists in Syria,” the official said. 


One recent tweet by Hamahmy defended Daesh. 


“Why are they sacred of the Islamic State? Because the Islamic State defends its resources, territory, the honor and dignity of Muslims,” he wrote, using another name for Daesh. 


The information gathered on Hamahmy will be shared with French authorities, according to the second official, who is with the Foreign Ministry. 


Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.


Speaking to AFP in Cairo Saturday, a retired police general, Reda Refaie al-Hamahmy, said he believed the wounded suspect was his son, Abdullah, who had been in Paris on a “work assignment.” 


But he said there were no signs his son had been radicalized. 


“He went on a company trip and when it was over visited the museum. He was supposed to leave Saturday,” he told AFP, saying his son was married and his pregnant wife was currently staying in Saudi Arabia with their 7-month-old son. 


“He is a simple guy,” he said. “I can show you pictures where he has no beard,” he said. 


“If he is convicted, God be with us. But if he is innocent, they owe us an apology,” the father said at the family home in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura. 


“He is a very respectable man who never had a problem with anybody, he never had any sort of political views,” he said. 


“His main concern in his life was his work in the United Arab Emirates,” he said. 


Abdullah al-Hamahmy has lived in Dubai for the past five years, employed by what his father said was a law firm. 


Ibrahim Youssry, a close friend of Hamahmy, said his behavior on the day of the attack did not betray any intention to commit an act of violence. “Before the attack, he commented on one of our friends’ pictures on Instagram and liked some [other] pictures. He also called his father and asked him what to bring for him from France. All this contradicts the French story,” Youssry said. 


Over the past two years, France has suffered a string of bloody attacks by Islamist extremists and has been under a state of emergency since November 2015. 


Security, immigration and the economy are all major issues for voters ahead of this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections which are expected to confirm the country’s shift to the right after five years of Socialist rule. 


The worries have taken a toll on the Louvre, a former palace in the heart of Paris, which has seen annual visitor numbers fall to 7.3 million since November 2015, a drop of around 2 million. 


After being closed immediately after the attack, the museum reopened Saturday under a heavy presence of police and soldiers

Source: NNA