Paris police worker who killed four in horror stabbing pictured as cops investigate terror link

THE police worker who knifed four colleagues to death at Paris’s police headquarters has been pictured for the first time, as cops investigate a terror link.

Prior to Thursday’s frenzied attack, killer Mickael Harpon had reportedly “shown support for the Charlie Hebdo massacre” which left 12 dead.

France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said the investigation had detected signs of “latent radicalisation” in Harpon, according to Reuters.

Le Parisien reports that Harpon, 45, commented on the Charlie Hebdo atrocity, when 12 people were murdered four years ago.

The publication said that he cried out “it’s done” after hearing that two men armed with assault rifles shot and killed 11 journalists and a policeman at the French satirical magazine’s newsroom on January 7, 2015.

It adds that on August 30 in the same year Harpon posted an article on Facebook saying that “France is ranked at the top of the most Islamophobic countries in Europe”.

The paper says it appears neither his comment after the newsroom slaughter, nor the post were “raised with intelligence services”.

It’s done!

Mickael Harpon, after the Charlie Hebdo massacre

ROOKIE HALTED ATTACK

The shooter, an IT worker at the headquarters, went on a rampage on Thursday, killing three police officers and an administrative worker.

The attacker first stabbed two police officers. A third police officer was killed in another office and an administrative worker died on the stairs.

He also wounded at least one other before being shot dead by a policeman responsible for security at the building, who fired several shots with a Heckler & Koch G-36 assault rifle, including to his head, killing him.

The cop who halted the attack was a rookie who had recently completed his training, and had been in the job for only six days, Paris police chief Didier Lallement told reporters.

“RADICALISATION”

The anti-terrorism prosecutor, Francois Ricard, said his office had taken over the probe because of signs the crime was premeditated.

He also alluded to the killer’s desire to die and of the nature of injuries found on at least one of his victims.

Ricard spoke to reporters about the shooter’s “radicalisation” and messages of exclusively religious character the attacker had sent to his wife shortly before the crime.

He had a “radical vision of Islam”, the anti-terror prosecutor said.

The investigation also revealed contact between the attacker and several people who are likely to belong to an Islamist Salafist movement – an ultra-conservative Islamic ideology – Ricard added.

Harpon “agreed with certain atrocities committed in the name of that religion”.

The killer, identified as Mickael Harpon in Le Parisien, was born on the French island of Martinique and had worked at the police headquarters for several years.

He converted to Islam about ten years ago, Ricard said.

Thursday’s rampage in Paris took place on the historic Ile de la Cite island in the River Seine.

The area was locked down after the deadly attack, with armed security personnel in camouflage gear patrolling a bridge over the river.

The killer’s wife was taken into police custody on Thursday but not charged.

During interviews with cops, she described how her husband had heard voices on Wednesday night, according to a source close to the investigation.

The couple were both registered as profoundly deaf, and have two children aged nine and three.

“TRUSTED EMPLOYEE”

A second source said Harpon was believed to have had an “attack of insanity” that led him to carry out the attack.

Colleagues described him as a previously trusted employee who had full security clearance to work in the Prefecture’s IT department.

However, on the morning of the knife rampage, he reportedly refused to kiss the women in the office, according to an unnamed police officer.

The security crisis led to President Emmanuel Macron visiting the building in person, along with his Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, and Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.

Serious concerns have been expressed this year about the psychological frailty of police staff in France.

A brigadier who shot himself in the head with his own service pistol in front of shocked colleagues has become the 50th French police officer to kill themselves last month.