PARIS: There was confusion on Monday over the identity of the man who injured two people in a meat cleaver attack in Paris last week which was condemned by the government as an act of “Islamist terrorism”.

Investigators said the assailant had identified himself as Hassan A., an 18-year-old born in Pakistan.

But in a video in which he said he was targeting the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the scene of a massacre by gunmen in January 2015, the man said his name was Zaheer Hassan Mehmood.

Investigators found a photo of an identity document on the attacker’s mobile phone of a man by the same name, aged 25, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

The man seriously injured two employees of TV production agency Premieres Lignes, whose offices are in the same city centre block that used to house Charlie Hebdo, which has since moved to a secret location.

The two victims were outside for a cigarette break, and officials said they were in a stable condition.

The attacker told investigators he thought he was targeting staff of Charlie Hebdo, which he did not know had moved.

He said he was avenging the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

The authorities said the claimed identity of Hassan A. belongs to a young man born in the Pakistani town of Mandi Bahauddin.

Hassan A. entered France three years ago, was not known to police and was not known to have every displayed signs of supporting radical Islam.

Two-minute video

In a two-minute video recorded under the name of Zaheer Hassan Mehmood, the attacker announced that: “Today, Friday September 25, I will condemn” Charlie Hebdo.

He did not claim to have acted on behalf of any organisation. The attacker remained in custody on Monday, along with five others investigators said were being held to learn more about the suspect’s “environment”.

Police believe he acted alone.

The five include three former flatmates of the attacker, his younger brother, and an acquaintance.

Five more people have been released from custody, including a man identified as Youssef, 22, who claimed he was arrested while trying to stop the attack.

“I wanted to be a hero, I ended up behind bars,” he told TF1 on Sunday.

The attack came three weeks into a trial of suspected accomplices of the authors of the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo, a policewoman, and a Jewish supermarket.

Seventeen people were killed in the three-day spree that heralded a wave of violence in France that has so far claimed 258 lives.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2020