(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) French authorities have launched a preliminary investigation on Tuesday into the foiled attack on a Thalys train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday and have placed the suspected gunman in custody.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the gunman, Moroccan national Ayoub el-Khazzani, 25 - who faces charges of attempted murder, possession of illegal weapons, and of belonging to a terrorist organization after wounding two people - had a "terrorist intent".
"He boarded the train in Brussels armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and 270 rounds of ammunition, as well as a Luger pistol, a bottle of petrol and a box-cutter," he said.
Molins said in a press conference that Khazzani had watched an extremist video on Youtube on his phone, which was found in a bag he left on the train.
He said the gunman had bought a first class ticket for 149 euros ($170), in cash, and insisted to board that train "when he was offered a cheaper ticket on a previous train".
According to Molins, Khazzani - who arrived on Tuesday afternoon escorted into a court building, barefoot, blindfolded and wearing hospital pyjamas - denied the charges, insisting he "was planning to rob the passengers and he found the bag full of weapons and a phone in a park in Brussels where he lived homeless in the last months".
Sophie David, a lawyer assigned to his case when he was taken off the train in Arras, in northern France, told French broadcast BFM-TV on Sunday, that she had seen "somebody who was very sick, somebody very weakened physically, as if he suffered from malnutrition, very, very thin and very haggard".
"He is dumbfounded that his act is being linked to terrorism," David added.
The prosecutor said the gunman lived in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers for "five to seven months" in 2014 while he worked for a telephone company.
After losing his job, he reportedly traveled to Austria, Brussels and Germany, from where he went to Turkey before returning to Europe on June 4, 2015 on a flight from Antakya in southern Turkey.
"However, Khazzani denies ever being in Turkey," said Molins.
The Paris prosecutor said investigators are still working to determine the exact dates of Khazzani's trips and whether he has been to Syria.
According to French authorities, on Friday, Khazzani, 25, boarded the train in Brussels. Once the train crossed the Belgian border into northern France, a French banker encountered Khazzani as he was walking out from the toilet topless, with a Kalashnikov in his hand.
The French passenger tried to disarm him but he escaped and fired at least one shot, wounding a French-American passenger in his fifties, who is still in a hospital.
Two off-duty U.S. servicemen Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos and their friend Anthony Sadler, a student, overpowered the gunman and managed to restrain him. Stone was the second person wounded during the incident, receiving a gunshot wound to his hand and getting hit at the eyes while fighting the attacker.
The trio were awarded the country's Legion d'Honneur medal on Monday by French President Francois Hollande in a ceremony at the Elysee palace in the presence of Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and the U.S. ambassador to Paris Jane Hartley.
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