German tourist stabbed to death near Eiffel Tower

PARIS — A person known to the French authorities as a radical Islamist with mental health troubles stabbed a German tourist to death and wounded two people in central Paris on Saturday, officials said.

Police quickly arrested the 26-year-old man, a French national, using a Taser stun gun, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

The attack took place during a busy weekend night when the man attacked a tourist couple with a knife on the Quai de Grenelle near the Eiffel Tower, mortally wounding the German national. He was then chased by police and attacked two other people.

"We will not give in to terrorism," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the attack.

President Emmanuel Macron said he was sending his condolences to the family of the German killed in the "terrorist attack".

Prosecutors specializing in terrorist incidents told Agence France-Presse on Sunday they had launched a probe into the attacker, named as Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, who is suspected of murder and attempted murder "in connection with a terrorist plot".

Rajabpour-Miyandoab, who is known to authorities as a radical Islamist and has been receiving treatment for mental illness, shouted "Allahu Akbar" — Arabic for "God is greatest" — at the moment of the attack, Darmanin said at the scene by Bir Hakeim bridge over the River Seine.

He fatally stabbed the German tourist, born in 1999, with a knife and then used a hammer to attack others as he sought to escape on the other side of River Seine.

Darmanin said the suspect had been sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for planning another attack that he failed to carry out.

A taxi driver who witnessed the scene intervened, Darmanin said, saving the wife of the slain tourist.

The attacker then crossed the bridge, lashing out at others and injuring a 66-year-old British citizen and a 60-year-old French national.

Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau told broadcaster France 3 on Sunday that the wounded people were "in good health", suffering only "superficial traumas, but of course psychological traumas that will be enormous".

Agencies Via Xinhua