PARIS — ***** tests determined Sunday that a suspected Islamic extremist consumed drugs and alcohol before a frenzied spree of ******** that ended when he took a soldier ******* at Paris’ Orly Airport and was shot **** by her fellow patrolmen.
The Paris prosecutors’ office said toxicology tests conducted as part of an autopsy found traces of ******* and ******** in the ***** of the suspect, Ziyed Ben Belgacem.
He also had 0.93 grams of alcohol per litre of ***** when he **** Saturday, the prosecutors’ office said. That is nearly twice the legal limit for driving in France.
The 39-year-old Frenchman with a long criminal record of drugs and robbery offences stopped at a bar in the wee hours Saturday morning, around four hours before he first ***** bird shot at traffic ******. Then, 90 minutes later, he attacked the military patrol at Orly, causing panic and the shutdown of the French capital’s second-biggest airport.
Yelling that he wanted to **** and die for Allah, Belgacem wrestled away a soldier’s ******* rifle but was shot to ***** by two other soldiers before he could **** the military-grade ****** in Orly’s busy South Terminal, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.
In an interview Sunday with French radio Europe 1, a man identified as the suspect’s father said Belgacem wasn’t a practicing ****** and drank alcohol.
“My son was never a *********. He never attended prayer. He drank. But under the effects of alcohol and ********, this is where one ends up,” said the father. Europe 1 did not give his name.
The father was released from ****** custody overnight Saturday. Belgacem’s brother and a cousin were released later Sunday.
Belgacem called his father and brother early Saturday morning, minutes after he ***** at a ****** traffic patrol, injuring an officer in the face, to say that he had made a stupid mistake, according to Molins, the prosecutor.
“He called me at seven, eight in the morning and said, ‘There you go, Papa.’ He was extremely angry, even his mother couldn’t understand him,” the man identified as the father said on Europe 1. “He told me: ‘I ask for your forgiveness. I’ve screwed up with a gendarme.”‘
A subsequent ****** search of Belgacem’s flat found *******, Molins said.
Belgacem had been flagged as having been radicalized during a spell in detention in 2011-2012, Molins said. His house was among dozens searched in ******** 2015 in the immediate ********* of ******* ****-and-*** ******* that ****** 130 people in Paris.
The Orly ****** forced both of the airport’s terminals to shut down and ********, sent passengers and workers fleeing in panic and trapped hundreds of others aboard planes that had just landed.
According to the soldiers, the ******** yelled: “Put down your *******! Put your hands on your head! I am here to die for Allah. Whatever happens, there will be ******,” Molins said.
The drama, which caused no ******** except for the light wound to the traffic ****** officer, further rattled France, which remains under a state of ********* after ******* the past two years that have ****** 235 people.
