Two stabbed near Charlie Hebdo’s old offices

Agencies

France announced an anti-terror probe into the stabbing of two journalists in Paris yesterday near to the former office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Prime Minister Jean Castex, who rushed to the scene, said the main attacker had been arrested. A second person was also in custody. “I was in my office. I heard screams in the road.

I looked out of the window and saw a woman who was lying on the floor and had taken a whack in the face from what was possibly a machete,” a witness told Europe 1 radio. Another neighbor, who heard the attack, said there was a long, deathly shout from “a person who was screaming and screaming.” Castex said the two wounded were attacked at random when taking a cigarette break.

The life of neither was in danger, he said. “This attack happened in a symbolic place at the time when the trial of the terrible attacks on Charlie Hebdo took place,” he said. Europe 1 radio quoted police officials as saying the main suspect was 18, was known to security services, and was born in Pakistan. One police source said a machete had been found at the scene. Another police source said a meat cleaver had been found there. The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said it was investigating the case.