Terrorist who killed French policewoman watched videos glorifying jihad before launching attack

Paris terrorist who stabbed to death mother-of-two French policewoman watched videos glorifying jihad before launching attack

Jamel Gorchene watched the videos on his phone just before the knife attack
He stabbed Stephanie M, a mother-of-two, 49, to death in a police station
The knifeman was shot dead by her colleagues and a terror probe was launched

By Jack Newman For Mailonline

Published: 16:00 BST, 25 April 2021 | Updated: 16:00 BST, 25 April 2021

The Tunisian national who killed a police worker near Paris on Friday had watched religious videos glorifying acts of jihad just before carrying out his attack, said France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard.

The assailant, identified as Jamel Gorchene, looked at the videos on his phone just before his knife attack on the police worker, a mother-of-two identified only as Stephanie M.

‘The attacker, just before carrying out his act, had looked at religious chants and videos glorifying jihad and martyrdom,’ said Ricard, who added that the assailant had also shouted out ‘Allahu Akbar’, or ‘God is Greatest’, during the attack.

The Tunisian national (pictured) who killed a police worker near Paris on Friday had watched religious videos glorifying acts of jihad just before carrying out his attack

The assailant, identified as Jamel Gorchene, looked at the videos on his phone just before his knife attack (his home in Rambouillet pictured)

The attacker was not previously known to police or anti-terrorist authorities and had recently moved to Rambouillet having previously lived in the Val-de-Marne

Stephanie died from stab wounds, while Jamel was subsequently shot dead by police after the attack at a police station in Rambouillet, a commuter suburb south of Paris.

Prosecutors have opened a terror probe after the killing which was carried out by the 36-year-old who arrived in France illegally in 2009 before he was given leave to remain in 2019.

Stephanie, an admin worker, who had worked for the police since 1993, had just ‘popped out of the station to change the parking disc on her car’ when she was pounced on by the attacker in the lobby.

The attacker was not previously known to police or anti-terrorist authorities and had recently moved to Rambouillet having previously lived in the Val-de-Marne.

The murdered woman was the mother of two children aged 13 and 18.

The assailant, pictured in Paris,shouted out ‘Allahu Akbar’, or ‘God is Greatest’, during the attack

The 36-year-old (family home in Tunisia pictured) who arrived in France illegally in 2009 before he was given leave to remain in 2019

Rambouillet is a quiet commune southwest of Paris and is known for its famous historic chateau

Rambouillet is a quiet and leafy commune southwest of Paris and is known for its historic chateau.

French President Emmanuel Macron said last Friday, in reaction to the killing in Rambouillet, that France had again been the victim of a terrorist attack.

He said: ‘She was a police officer. Stephanie was killed in her Rambouillet police station, on the already damaged land of Yvelines.

‘The nation is with her family, her colleagues and the police. In the fight against Islamist terrorism, we will not give up.’

A female police worker in France was killed by the knifeman who was then shot dead by her colleagues. Pictured: officers stand near the police station after the attack

Stephanie died from stab wounds, while Jamel was subsequently shot dead by police after the attack

Ricard said France was working with Tunisian authorities in its probe into the Rambouillet attack. The Tunisian Embassy in Paris condemned the attack, in a statement issued this weekend.

France has experienced several attacks by Islamist militants in recent years.

Bombings and shootings in November 2015 at the Bataclan theatre and other sites around Paris killed 130 people, and in July 2016 an Islamist militant drove a truck through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 86.

Last October, a French schoolteacher was beheaded in Conflans, another commuter suburb near Paris, by a Chechen teenager who was then shot dead by police.

France’s string of savage terror attacks

October 29, 2020 – A knife-wielding Tunisian man shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in the French city of Nice before being shot and taken away by police.
October 16, 2020 – School teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded on the street of a Paris suburb. Paty had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a class on freedom of expression, angering some Muslim parents. Muslims believe that any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous. Police shot dead the 18-year-old attacker of Chechen origin.
September 15, 2020 – Two people were stabbed and wounded in Paris near the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, where Islamist militants carried out a deadly attack in 2015. A man originally from Pakistan was arrested over the attack.
October 3, 2019 – Mickael Harpon, 45, an IT specialist with security clearance to work in the Paris police headquarters, killed three police officers and one civilian employee before being shot dead by police. He had converted to Islam 10 years earlier.
March 23, 2018 – A gunman killed three people in southwestern France after holding up a car, firing on police and taking hostages in a supermarket. Security forces stormed the building and killed him.
July 26, 2016 – Two attackers killed a priest and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France before being shot dead by police. Francois Hollande, France’s president at the time, said the hostage-takers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
July 14, 2016 – A gunman drove a heavy truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing 86 people and injuring scores more in an attack claimed by Islamic State. The attacker was identified as a Tunisian-born Frenchman.
June 14, 2016 – A Frenchman of Moroccan origin stabbed a police commander to death outside his home in a Paris suburb and killed his partner, who also worked for the police. The attacker told police he was answering an appeal by Islamic State.
November 13, 2015 – Paris was rocked by multiple gun and bomb attacks on entertainment sites around the city, in which 130 people were killed and 368 wounded. Islamic State said it was responsible. Two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and three were French.
January 7-9, 2015 – Two Islamist militant gunmen broke into satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s offices and killed 12 people. Another militant killed a policewoman the next day and took hostages at a supermarket, killing four before police shot him dead.

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