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Train gunman ‘dumbfounded’ by terrorist tag, says he was hungry

French soldiers patrol at Gare du Nord train station in Paris, France, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015. (AP)

French soldiers patrol at Gare du Nord train station in Paris, France, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015. (AP)

Is this a post-fact defense tactic to try and exculpate himself from the crime or was he really attempting to rob the train? What doesn’t make sense is why do you need an AK to rob a train and who just finds AK’s lying around in a park? Also we need to learn more about what actually went down on the train.

By Reuters | Paris/Algeciras, Spain Sunday, 23 August 2015

A gunman who attacked passengers on a high-speed train in France two days ago is “dumbfounded” at having been taken for an Islamist militant and says he only intended to rob people on board because he was hungry, his lawyer said on Sunday.

As details emerged of the gunman’s early adult life in Spain, lawyer Sophie David said her client — now in detention near Paris — also looked ill and malnourished.

French and Spanish sources close to the case have identified him as a 26-year-old Moroccan named Ayoub el Khazzani who was known to European authorities as a suspected Islamist militant.

“(I saw) somebody who was very sick, somebody very weakened physically, as if he suffered from malnutrition, very, very thin and very haggard,” David told BFMTV.

“He is dumbfounded by the terrorist motives attributed to his action,” she added.

David said the man was barefoot and wore only a hospital shirt and boxer shorts for the police interrogation in Arras, northern France, where the train stopped after the incident.

The Moroccan told David he had found the Kalashnikov he had taken onto the train in a park near the Gare du Midi rail station in Brussels where he was in the habit of sleeping.

“A few days later he decided to get on a train that some other homeless people told him would be full of wealthy people travelling from Amsterdam to Paris and he hoped to feed himself by armed robbery,” David said.

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    • colorcoded

      Come on, why print this? It strains credulity. A man gets on a train with a kalishnikov that he “found” in order to rob people because he was hungry? As if you are going to find a kalishnikov with loads of ammunition stashed in a public park in France. If he was hungry, why not sell the kalishnikov that he found.

    • James Michael

      Ask the US CORP(se) and Israeli murderers and terrorists all about it…. they are experts…..And yeah I’m an American that served and obeyed my sworn oath….

    • Bill

      I hope you’ve got a baptism certificate somewhere, in case you’re challenged about your enthusiasm for the Saudi Arabian justice system. That’s a dangerous opinion for Muslims to hold.

    • Bill

      I’m not convinced that it was “for bread” either, but we DO know that he didn’t buy an AK 47. This happened in Europe, remember? He may have “found” the gun (not necessarily in such an innocent manner as he claims) or he may have been provided with it by a network of people who can get around gun controls – as we all assumed in the first place – but we can be sure that he didn’t take his grocery money to a Belgian gun-shop to buy a Red Army surplus assault rifle.

    • Otto

      Thankfully, this fellow was not able to follow through with his intent. Ah … let’s send him away to “camp” for a lengthy spell and impose some therapy upon him.

    • 786 The description of the man’s attire suggests that if he is not, indeed, homeless and hungry he may at the very least be mentally ill.

    • Otto

      Looks like they got a bad guy here – regardless of his motivation. Thanks LW for providing us this story.

    • cmyfe .

      I’m not convinced that it was for “bread”. Did he have the money to buy guns an ammo but couldn’t afford “bread”? Regardless of his motives may I suggest the Islamic punishment for armed robbery?

    • Yes – again – violet crime by a criminal of a “Muslim” background is “terrorism.” The most instances we see violent crimes by “Muslims” labeled as “terrorism” the more discriminatory the “terrorism” label becomes.

      Somewhere along the line here, sharp human rights attorneys, both here and in Europe, need to start challenge the discriminatory nature of governments’ usage of the “terrorism” label, especially if it causes more surveillance, more harassment of Muslim citizens, more dubious “counter-terrorism”activities on the part of governments, and that includes enhanced prison sentences for “terrorists.”

      Challenge to the “terrorism” label should occur despicably if a defendant is facing enhanced penalties due to a “terrorism.” This is the case in the Netherlands with the convictions of the members of Mohammed Bouyeri’s street gang, the Hofstad gang.

    • mindy1

      I am taking a wait and see approach, see if more facts come out.

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