Less than 72 hours of a lightning investigation were enough to identify and gently capture, Monday morning, the main suspect of the parcel bomb attack that was thirteen wounded , including a 10-year-old girl Friday in the heart of Lyon. Born in Algeria in 1995, the latter was arrested by a dozen men from the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) at 9:55 am, as he was getting off a bus on the Boulevard Yves-Farge, in Paris. 7th arrondissement of the city of Gaul.
The police, who were on his trail since Sunday night, did not want to surprise him at his home, where could be TATP, the explosive that was used to make the bomb. Without any resistance, the young man raised his arms before being taken into custody for a theoretical period of 96 hours.
Fearing since Friday to see a "fireworks" return to action, the police officers of the PJ Lyon, the Counter-Terrorism and the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI) are launched in a real-life against shows. "They have done a blazing and exemplary investigation," a senior Interior Ministry official hisses, adding that it is not "intelligence" that has "housed" the fugitive. DNA, taken from three different media, has established that it corresponds to one and the same unknown. And that it does not appear in any file.
Awesome video surveillance work
In fact, the track of this ghostly suspect, who passed a computer license in Oran before arriving in France last year, was able to be reassembled first thanks to an impressive work done on video surveillance. Based on images of the explosion at 5:40 pm at the corner of rue Victor-Hugo, the police rewinded with meticulous sequence sequence the film of the path of the suspect and whose public dissemination has resulted in nearly 300 calls. "His journey has been traced to a well defined sector, says an informed source. From there, the investigators crossed this place with all the exploitable material. "
Geolocated, the suspect would have attracted suspicion by the purchase of LR6 batteries, identical to those used in the making of the parcel bomb. As early as Sunday night, the "engineer" was in the viewfinder. Presented as a "student in a computer school", he was admitted in 2017 to Epitech but has never attended this institution that had to unsubscribe due to a visa defect. »READ ALSO - Attack in Lyon: the main suspect had been de-registered from Epitech for lack of a visa
At the last stage of the investigation, his motivations remain enigmatic. "The modus operandi, especially with the use of the TATP, screws and metal balls would seem to lean toward the trail of Islamist terrorism but caution is on the move," says a police officer who adds: "We just learn to know this suspect, little talkative. For now, still no claim has been recorded.
Fuzzy motivations
After the preventive intervention of the Raid and the deminers, the police conducted Monday afternoon the search of the parental home in the residence Les Ifs, in Oullins, near suburbs of Lyon. While patrol vehicles locked the entrances and a drone flew over the area, the police conducted the searches in the presence of the mysterious witness "number 1", who still lived with his parents. His younger brother, educated at the prestigious Lycée Ampère de Lyon, his mother and his father were also placed in police custody. The suspect's sister was heard in open court. Sponsorisé par Le Particulier Figaro Partenaire Pourquoi investir en résidence avec services ? Découvrez tous les avantages de ce placement EN SAVOIR PLUS
One of the questions is who inspired what looks like an attack and where does TATP (triacetone tripeoxide) come from? Artisanal and very unstable, this explosive appeared in the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis. A fact seems certain: the profile of the computer scientist, presented as "technically good", could explain the sophistication of the firing system endowed, as revealed by the prosecutor Rémy Heitz, a printed circuit and a remote triggering device.