French law enforcement cooperated with those in Rotterdam, where a homeless man was violently attacked on the night of November 4 to 5 (illustrative image).
AFP
A man was arrested Tuesday evening in the south of France, suspected of having killed a homeless man in Lyon with a cinder block, we learned on Wednesday from police sources. The man presented himself as a 32-year-old Cameroonian subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF).
His arrest came after railway police were called in to report the attack on a young woman on board a train. He was arrested at Toulon station.
In addition to the murder in Lyon, the police are questioning its role in several attacks carried out with a similar “mode of operation” in Evry, Dijon, Strasbourg, as well as in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
With a concrete block
Indeed, the usual checks carried out after the arrest of the suspect made it possible to make the link with an arrest warrant issued by an investigating judge in Evry,” the Toulon prosecutor told AFP, Samuel Finielz.
According to the Evry Public Prosecutor’s Office, this warrant concerns an attempted homicide committed on October 23 on the square in front of the Evry-Courcouronnes station. A man, who was sleeping, received a concrete block in the face. Initially hospitalized with a vital prognosis, the victim was able to be saved.
DNA analyzes in progress
This savage attack has similarities with the murder on Monday in Lyon, where a homeless man of Moldovan nationality was discovered dead with a large wound in the head, a bloody concrete block next to him. A CCTV camera filmed the person punching him in the head. An investigation into murder has been opened.
Analyzes, notably DNA, are underway to verify whether the man arrested Tuesday evening is indeed the perpetrator of this homicide, according to a judicial source.
Similar attack in Rotterdam
But the Cameroonian is also of interest to Dutch law enforcement. Indeed, on the night of November 4 to 5, a homeless man was attacked in the same way in Rotterdam. The victim was seriously injured by blows with a large tile. The scene was also filmed and, in their wanted notice, the Dutch police had released the image of a dark-skinned man, aged around thirty.
After the arrest in Toulon, the Dutch police said they were “investigating to find out if this is the suspect linked to the Rotterdam attack”.
Also in Dijon
Earlier, a 42-year-old woman was injured by an individual who hit her in the head with one or more rocks. The attack took place in July in Dijon.
Furthermore, an attack also reportedly occurred in Strasbourg, but the public prosecutor’s office in this city was not immediately available to provide details.
Dozens of deaths per year
In 2023, at least 735 homeless people died in France, a figure of unprecedented magnitude, according to figures published at the end of October by the collective Les Morts de la Rue, which has been conducting an annual census since 2012. However, these data are to be interpreted with caution because “a significant part of the deaths” escapes the collective. Although the cause of death remains unknown in more than half of the cases recorded, 5 to 6% are due to an attack.
Nearly 300,000 people were homeless in France, including around 40,000 homeless, according to a report from the Court of Auditors published in early 2021.
(afp)
