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French police name arrested Paris gun suspect

Paris's police prefecture handed out a picture of the suspected gunman in the Concorde metro station
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French authorities have named a man arrested on suspicion of carrying out recent gun attacks in Paris as Abdelhakim Dekhar.
He was taken into custody at about 18:00 GMT from a vehicle in a car park in Bois-Colombes, north-west of Paris.
Authorities said Dekhar had been jailed in 1998 for his role in a string of fatal shootings in Paris.
Last Friday a gunman threatened a Paris TV station and on Monday attacked a newspaper office and bank HQ.
Prosecutors said late on Wednesday that samples of Dekhar's DNA matched that from the crime scenes.
They said he was not yet in a position to be questioned and the reading of his rights had been postponed.
Third manDekhar was arrested in a stationary car in an underground car park following a tip-off from a member of the public.
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Abdelhakim Dekhar

• Former officer in the Algerian army
  
• Sentenced to four years in prison in 1998 for buying a gun used in a shooting attack by Florence Rey and Audry Maupin
  
• Witnesses at the trial described him as a mentor to the couple
  
• He denied involvement, claiming he had been recruited by the Algerian secret service to infiltrate the French far-left
  
• He was released soon after the trial and officials believe he went abroad for several years
  

Police union official Christophe Crepin said: "My colleagues noticed he was not very lucid. They deduced that he had taken medicines, because of the capsules nearby."
Some media sources have suggested he may have attempted suicide.
The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says Dekhar is believed to have been the third man in the so-called Rey-Maupin affair, named after a young couple with links to anarchist groups who bungled an attempt to steal weapons from guards and then hijacked a taxi in 1994.
In the subsequent chase and shootout, three policemen and the taxi driver were killed, as well as Audry Maupin.
Maupin's girlfriend, Florence Rey, was released from jail a few years ago.
Their story was compared to the controversial American film, Natural Born Killers.
At his trial in 1998, Dekhar protested his innocence, claiming he had been recruited by the Algerian secret service to infiltrate the French far-left.
Maupin ® was killed in a 1994 shootout but Rey was released from jail
He was sentenced to four years in jail but released soon after the verdict, having already served his time in pre-trial detention.
Hundreds of police were involved in a huge manhunt that began on Monday, and security was stepped up at all media outlets.
An appeal for information generated almost 700 calls.
'I will not miss'The first incident - last Friday - was at the offices of the BFMTV television channel.
The intruder emptied the chamber of his gun in the reception area without firing, saying: "Next time, I will not miss you."


The BBC's Christian Fraser: "For three days... police have been on high alert"

CCTV showed that he spent only a few seconds in reception, before hurrying out.
On Monday, the suspect attacked the offices of the Liberation newspaper, firing twice and critically injuring a 23-year-old photography assistant.
Two hours later, the same man fired shots outside the headquarters of the bank Societe Generale, in the western business district of La Defense. No-one was hurt.
A car was then hijacked and the driver was forced to drop the suspect off near the Avenue des Champs Elysees, where he disappeared.
The attacks shocked French newspapers.
The publisher of Liberation, Nicolas Demorand, wrote a commentary on Tuesday promising to continue to operate.
"Opening fire in a newspaper is an attack on the lives of men and women who are only doing their jobs. And on an idea, a set of values, which we call the Republic," he said.
The gunshot victim is said to have improved in hospital, is now conscious and no longer needs an artificial respirator.

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French shooting suspect left conspiracy letters

By AFP | AFP 7 hours ago

• View PhotoThe suspect in a series of shootings across Paris is captured on CCTV walking through …
  
  
• View PhotoPolice officers stand guard on November 20, 2013 outside the parking lot where Abdelhakim …
  
  
• View PhotoThe couple, Florence Rey, shown in a police photo from 1994 and Audry Maupin ® …
  
  
• View PhotoParis shooting suspect Abdelhakim Dekhar is shown in 1994 while in custody as part …
  
  
• View Photo
  

France said the suspect arrested over this week's shootings in Paris was previously jailed for his role in a "Bonnie-and-Clyde" style multiple murder and left rambling letters denouncing conspiracies and media manipulation.
Abdelhakim Dekhar, 48, was arrested on Wednesday after a major manhunt following a shooting at the left-wing newspaper Liberation that left a photographer's assistant seriously hurt, and a separate incident where shots were fired at the headquarters of the Societe Generale bank.
He was found in a vehicle in an underground parking lot in the northwestern Paris suburb of Bois-Colombes, after apparently trying to commit suicide, and was in a semi-conscious state.
Dekhar was transferred to a Paris police station, where the authorities were granted an extra 24 hours to keep him in custody pending further investigations for attempted murder and kidnapping.
His DNA matched samples from the scenes of the attacks, officials said.
Dekhar's lawyer told AFP his client would not be answering any questions for the moment.
"Not having access to his case file, my client has chosen for now to invoke his right to remain silent," Remi Lorrain said.
A 32-year-old man who housed Dekhar led investigators to the fugitive, and the suspect told the same man he made "a stupid mistake" on the day of the Liberation shooting, a source close to the enquiry told AFP.
The pair first met 13 years ago in London, where Dekhar lived for several years and worked in a restaurant, Paris prosecutor Frederic Molins told a news conference.
British newspapers said Friday he lived in Britain for a total of 13 years and got married there after serving the jail sentence for his role in the multiple murder in France in the 1990s.
He initially moved to Ilford in east London, the Times newspaper said without citing sources.
He then married a Turkish student in Redbridge, northeast London, in February 2000, the Times and London's Evening Standard newspapers both reported.
Dekhar's sister, Farida Dekhar-Powell, lives in the commuter town of Shenfield, in Essex, southeast England, and is a French teacher, the Evening Standard said.
"I stopped talking to him 20 years ago. He is not part of my life and that?s how it stays," she told the Evening Standard.
Dekhar came to France in July with the intention of staying here a month but never returned to London.
"All the evidence today points to his involvement" in the attacks, Interior Minister Manuel Valls said.
The undated letters found by investigators after his attacks are incoherent and attempt to explain his actions, investigators said.
They denounce capitalism and speak of "a plot aimed at the return of fascism in the media, in banks, in the policy on suburbs", Molins said.
Dekhar also accused journalists "of being paid to feed lies to citizens" and decried what he saw as the "dehumanisation" of people living in the suburbs.
Molins said the letters merit "being shown to a psychiatrist".
One letter mentioned Libya, Syria and the situation in the Arab world, news channel BFMTV said.
The shooter opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun at the offices of Liberation early on Monday, hitting a 23-year-old photographer's assistant, then fired another blast that hit the roof before leaving within seconds.
He then crossed the city to the La Defense business district on its western edge, where he fired several shots outside the main office of the Societe Generale bank, hitting no one.
He hijacked a car and forced the driver to drop him off in the centre of the French capital, before disappearing.
Police say the shooter was the same man who on November 15 stormed into the Paris headquarters of a 24-hour TV news channel, BFMTV, briefly threatening staff with a gun before hurrying out.
Dekhar was convicted in 1998 of buying a gun used in the October 1994 shooting attack by student Florence Rey and her lover Audry Maupin, who moved in left-wing circles.
Three policemen, a taxi driver and Maupin himself were killed in a case that captivated France.
Investigators at the time compared the young couple to the infamous American outlaws Bonnie and Clyde.
Witnesses at the trial described Dekhar as a mentor to the couple and accused him of exploiting their youth to manipulate them, while his former lawyers have described him as "enigmatic" and "strange".
Rey, a middle-class student hitherto unknown to the police, was tried and sentenced to 20 years in jail. She was released in 2009.





Dekhar was acquitted of armed assault but found guilty of procuring the weapon and sentenced to four years. He was released soon afterwards, having already served his time in pre-trial detention.