Makeshift tributes are shown Friday at the scene of a knife attack at a park in Annecy, France. The suspect made an initial court appearance Saturday where he was indicted on attempted murder charges. Photo by Gregory Ros/EPA-EFE
June 10 (UPI) — A man suspected of stabbing four children at a playground in the French Alps this week is facing charges of attempted murder following a Saturday court appearance, prosecutors said.
The 31-year-old suspect, identified as Abdalmasih H., was indicted on counts of attempted murder and wielding a knife in committing a criminal act during a court session n Annecy, France, local prosecutor Line-Bonnet Mathis told reporters.
The suspect, a Syrian refugee who has lived in Sweden since 2013, has refused to speak to authorities in the 48 hours since his arrest and had to be transported to the courtroom in a wheelchair after cowering on the floor of his jail cell, according to French media reports.
Mathis said the four children injured in the attack, aged between 1 and 3 years, received a total of 11 knife wounds in Thursday’s attack in a park located near the Pont des Amours in Annecy, a city of 125,000 located about 25 miles south of Geneva, Switzerland.
She confirmed their lives were no longer in danger. One of the victims, a British girl aged 15 months, will be released from the hospital in a matter of days, she said.
President Emmanuel Macron visited some of the children in a hospital in Grenoble and visited emergency workers in Annecy on Friday.
French authorities have insisted there is no indication the attacks were motivated by terrorism or politics. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told broadcaster BFMTV Friday the suspect “obviously not someone radicalized.”
The man twice shouted “In the name of Jesus Christ” during the stabbing attacks and was wearing a crucifix pendant as one 24-year-old man tried to fight off the assailant using a backpack.
But his rampage has nevertheless served to ramp up tensions in France over immigration as conservative politicians highlighted the suspect’s refugee status.
“The investigation will determine what happened, but it seems like the culprit has the same profile that you see often in these attacks,” the head of the right-wing Republicans party, Eric Ciotti, told Radio France International.