Magnanville, France: A convicted radical who killed a French police couple in an ISIS-inspired stabbing was carrying a “hit list” of VIPs and urged followers to turn Euro 2016 into a “graveyard”, officials said on Tuesday.
Monday’s assault in a small town northwest of Paris was the first deadly strike in France since the coordinated attacks in the capital by an Islamic State cell in November, which killed 130 people.
Larossi Abballa, who was under surveillance after serving time for links to jihadist networks, first stabbed 42-year-old Jean-Baptiste Salvaing outside his home.
He then holed up inside the house with Salvaing’s 36-year-old partner Jessica Schneider and the couple’s three-year-old son. Shortly afterwards he killed Schneider by slitting her throat.
Abballa then posted on Facebook a live 13-minute video of himself inside the house with the child in which he admits the murders and urges fellow jihadists to carry out more bloodshed.
He was later killed during a police raid which ended the standoff in the town of Magnanville. The child escaped unharmed but in shock.
