French media: Why was the case of murder suspect treated so lightly?

Lawyers of the families of three victims of a deadly attack in Paris on 23 December applied to the French authorities on Tuesday, demanding that the incident is considered a "terrorist attack," Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) reported.

The lawyers filed objections to the prosecution who indicted the suspect on charges of murder and attempted murder with a "racist motive," MA added.

Two of the three Kurdish victims killed on Friday in Paris's Rue d'Enghien were political activists. Emine Kara (Evin Goyi), was a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization for several Kurdish political parties, MA said. Mir Perwer (Mehmet Sirin Aydin) was a political refugee and artist.

Questions raised over 23 December attack

Questions were also raised on Tuesday by Le Monde over French officials' handling of a previous case involving the suspect.

The suspect, Willian M., was released on parole days before the attack on Kurds on Friday, Le Monde said, asking why the legal case over the man's sabre attack on a migrant camp a year earlier had been "treated so lightly."

On 8 December 2021, William M. had approached a migrant camp in Bercy park in Paris's 12th arrondissement early in the morning, pretending to be a jogger. He then drew a sword, shouting "Death to migrants" and began to slash the tents where families were sleeping. He attacked a man who was urinating, wounding him. He then wounded a minor, before being bound and immobilized by three other campers, who hit him with a tree branch.

Le Monde's Christophe Ayad noted that the incident in Bercy park was treated as a "brawl" rather than as "attempted murder."

As the charge against him was punishable by a sentence of less than 10 years in prison, he could not be remanded in custody for more than one year, but if the charge had been left as "attempted homicide," he might still be in pre-trial detention, Ayad added.

It was also questioned how William M. was able to obtain a gun or conceal it when he has been banned from possessing weapons since a 2017 conviction.

He explained to crime scene investigators that he hid the Colt 45 that was used in the recent deadly attack at his parents' home, Ayad said. The same holds for the multiple rounds of ammunition found on him at the time of his arrest on Friday.

Ayad finally underlined that the Bercy park affair did not result in a file on William M. by French intelligence services.