Paris:

A man who was responsible for a knife attack that injured three people at a busy Paris station on Saturday was returned to police custody on Sunday after being held in a mental hospital, prosecutors said.

The attacker, a 32-year-old Malian citizen, carried out the assassination at 7:35 am (0635 GMT) on Saturday at Gare de Lyon in central Paris, which operates domestic trains as well as trains to Switzerland and European trains. Italy.

Police sources said passers-by subdued the man before railway police arrived at the scene.

The attacker did not appear to be mentally fit for questioning, so he was sent to a police psychiatric hospital.

Investigators told AFP the man who was seriously injured in the attack still has life-threatening injuries.

He suffered life-threatening injuries to his abdomen and two others suffered minor injuries, Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunez told reporters on Saturday. A fourth man was left shocked after witnessing the attack.

The stabbing occurred less than six months before Paris hosts the 2024 Olympics, when 15 million tourists are expected to come to the city.

Saturday’s attacker held documents showing he had been living legally in Italy since 2016, which gave him the right to travel to France, and had no criminal record.

“He was receiving treatment at a mental health center in the province of Turin,” Italy’s national police said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

French police said the man told them he suffered from “mental problems” and was carrying drugs.

The motive for the stabbing remains unclear, although a video posted to a TikTok account in the attacker’s name made reference to France’s past military operations in Mali.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the attack, while the national counterterrorism prosecutor said on Saturday that he was observing the current stage of the proceedings.

More than 100 million passengers pass through Gare de Lyon, France’s largest mainline railway hub, every year.

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