Orly airport: France launches terror investigation

By BBC News

French anti-terror prosecutors are investigating an attack at Paris’s Orly airport by a gunman who was eventually shot dead by security forces.

Ziyed Ben Belgacem, 39, was killed on Saturday after he put a gun to a soldier’s head saying he wanted to “die for Allah”, officials say.

Earlier that day he had been involved in a shooting and then a carjacking.

Belgacem is described as having been radicalised in prison, and was on a police watch-list.

His criminal record included convictions for armed robbery and drugs offences, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters late on Saturday.

Intelligence agents searched his home in Garges-les-Gonesse for evidence of Islamist sympathies, but reportedly found nothing. However, traces of cocaine were discovered during the search.

The BBC’s Hugh Schofield in Paris says the picture is building up of a man on the criminal fringes of society, who also consorted with Islamist radicals.

Operation Sentinel

The attack comes at a sensitive time. France has presidential elections starting next month and remains under a state of emergency.

The soldiers at Orly were part of Operation Sentinel – involving thousands of soldiers deployed to provide back-up to the police after the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015 and the Paris attacks of November 2015.