Seriously injured by a bullet shot by a municipal police officer after having spread gasoline in an office of the building on August 21, the 46-year-old man remained “evasive about his motives.”
The man who tried to set fire to the Angoulême town hall at the end of August has been charged with attempted homicide, the prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday, adding that he remained “evasive about his motivations”but said he did not act “for religious reasons”.
Seriously injured by a bullet shot by a municipal police officer after having spread gasoline in an office of the building on August 21, the 46-year-old man of French nationality could not be questioned after the events. “due to his medical situation and the mental health problems noted by doctors”recalls the public prosecutor of Angoulême, Stéphanie Aouine, in a press release.
“Evasive about his motivations”
Once his hearing was deemed possible, he was “placed in police custody in hospital” Monday. During his hearing, he is “remained evasive about his motives, indicating nevertheless that he was targeting the property, in this case the town hall premises, and not the people who were there, and that he had not acted for religious reasons”adds the magistrate. At the end of this police custody, the man was charged “counts of attempted homicide of persons carrying out a public service mission, attempted homicide of persons in positions of public authority and destruction by dangerous means”the prosecutor added that she had requested that he be placed in pre-trial detention.
The man, who has no criminal record, had burst into Angoulême town hall around noon after parking his vehicle, which had Arabic inscriptions on it – the Muslim profession of faith. Having poured petrol into an office where two assistants were, then threatened a police officer with a flaming chain, he was hit twice in the chest by shots from a municipal police officer and hospitalised in “absolute emergency”The fire was quickly extinguished.
On August 23, the prosecution had advanced “the hypothesis of reproaches made by the person concerned towards the town hall of Angoulême”adding that the man was socially integrated but “had been suffering for several years from behavioral disorders which had notably led to psychiatric treatment in 2023”including in particular “a tendency towards suspicion and a feeling of persecution”The Angoulême public prosecutor’s office has opened a second investigation targeting the police officer who used his weapon. “The hypothesis of the situation of self-defense” of the agent is “privileged”the magistrate said in her press release on Tuesday.
