The suspect in the beheading of a businessman, Yassine Salhi, a towel over his head to mask his face, is escorted by police officers as they leave his home in Saint-Priest, outside the city of Lyon, central France, Sunday, June 28, 2015. (AP)
French gas factory attacker linked to ISIS
Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molin said Yassin Salhi had a 'terrorist motive'
A French prosecutor confirmed Tuesday that the man who beheaded his boss and tried to blow up a gas factory in Lyon had a “terrorist motive” and links to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, according to Agence France Presse.
Yassin Salhi’s attack “last Friday corresponded very precisely to the orders of [ISIS]”, said Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molin and “resembled a martyr operation”, while also being motivated by a personal hatred for his boss.
Prosecutor Francois Molins announced the news at the end of an initial 96-hour custody following the arrest of Salhi, 35, who was arrested on the scene of the crime near the southern city of Lyon on Friday.
Molins said investigations in the four days since Salhi's arrest -- notably evidence of contact with an Islamist militant in Syria -- justified an inquiry on charges of suspected terrorism and not simply, as Salhi argued, an assassination that was provoked by personal problems with his boss and wife.
