JAKARTA - President of the United States (US) Donald Trump expressed his support for France after the church attack that killed three people in the City of Nice, France. The perpetrator was found to have just come from Tunisia, according to French officials.
"Our hearts are with the French people. America stands with our oldest ally in this fight. This radical Islamic terrorist attack must be stopped immediately. No country, France or anything else can last long with it! " Trump said via his Twitter account.
Our hearts are with the people of France. America stands with our oldest Ally in this fight. These Radical Islamic terrorist attacks must stop immediately. No country, France or otherwise can long put up with it!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2020
Quoting Reuters, Friday, October 30, the attack came less than two weeks after the beheading of History Teacher Samuel Paty in Paris by his student. The student was angry with his teacher for showing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in the middle of a study activity.
Chief anti-terrorist prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said the suspect in the church attack was a Tunisian man who was born in 1999. He arrived in Europe on September 20 in Lampedusa, an Italian island off Tunisia that is the main landing point for migrants from Africa. Tunisian security sources and French police sources named the suspect as Brahim Aouissaoui.
ChronologyRicard told a press conference in Nice that the man entered the city by train on Thursday 29 October morning and went to church. He then stabbed and killed a 55-year-old church guard and nearly beheaded a 60-year-old woman.
The perpetrator also stabbed a 44-year-old woman who fled to a nearby cafe where she sounded the alarm before she died, Ricard said. The police then came and confronted the attacker and shot the man. The perpetrator is now in hospital in critical condition.
“At the attacker we found a Koran and two telephones, a 30cm knife with a 17cm sharp edge. We also found a bag left by the attackers. Next to this bag are two knives that were not used in the attack, ”explained Ricard.
The attack coincided with the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad SAW. In addition, the attacks also come amid growing Muslim anger over France's stance on defending France to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and protesters denouncing France in street demonstrations in several Muslim-majority countries.
Meanwhile, Tunisian counter-militancy special court spokesman Mohsen Dali said the perpetrator was not registered by the police there as a suspected militant. He said the perpetrators left the country on September 14 by boat, adding that Tunisia had started its own forensic investigation into the case.
Criticism for the attack also came from Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Saudi Arabia. Turkey, where President Tayyip Erdogan earlier this week criticized Macron and France for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, has also condemned the attacks.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
