Posted on 10/07/2002 5:44:42 AM PDT by Tancred
PARIS (AP) - The man who allegedly attacked Paris' openly gay mayor with a knife at an all-night City Hall party confessed and said he does not like politicians or homosexuals, police said.
The suspect, Azedine Berkane, 39, remained in custody Monday and was to undergo a second psychiatric exam, according to France-Info radio. The attack early Sunday on Mayor Bertrand Delanoe was the third on public officials in France this year.
Delanoe, 52, was stabbed in the stomach at 2:30 a.m. Sunday in an ornate salon of Paris City Hall, which was opened to the public for an all-night fete. He underwent an operation and was to remain hospitalized for about eight days.
The attacker lunged at Delanoe as he walked in the crowd of hundreds of people. The mayor never lost consciousness and ordered the party to continue "until 8 a.m., as planned," according to his aides.
Berkane, an unemployed French man of Algerian descent, was immediately wrestled to the ground and arrested.
"We didn't see him coming," Delanoe's communications director, Anne-Sylvie Schneider, was quoting as saying in the daily newspaper Liberation. "I thought he was punching him (the mayor) in the stomach ... (but) Bertrand Delanoe said, `He knifed me.'"
Judicial officials said the suspect was to be placed under investigation — a step short of being charged — on Tuesday after his detention was prolonged for 24 hours.
The suspect voluntarily submitted to psychiatric treatment in April, according to judicial officials.
Berkane described himself as a practicing Muslim and said he viewed homosexuality as against nature, the judicial officials said. However, investigators said the suspect had no links with radical groups and that they were treating the attack as a common crime.
The stabbing occurred during the "Sleepless Night" fete inaugurated by Delanoe. The celebration was an all-night cultural and artistic party taking place across the city. For the occasion, the mayor opened the sprawling City Hall to the public.
City Hall is not a "fortified castle hiding behind sentinels," said Delanoe's first deputy, Anne Hidalgo. "Bertrand Delanoe's choice was to have an open house," she said on Europe 1 radio.
In March, an unemployed man with a history of psychiatric problems gunned down eight city council members in suburban Nanterre. On July 14 — Bastille Day — a man tried to shoot President Jacques Chirac as he reviewed troops near the Arc de Triomphe. Chirac was unhurt.
Delanoe, a Socialist elected in 2001, broke a centurylong hold by the right wing on Paris. Early on, he began marking his tenure with special events like the all-night party.
He didn't go down without a fight. <|:)~
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