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Blood tests have revealed that a gunman who attacked soldiers at Orly airport in Paris on Saturday had consumed drugs and alcohol.
Ziyed Ben Belgacem, 39, was killed after he put a gun to a soldier’s head saying he wanted to “die for Allah”.
Paris prosecutors’ office said toxicology tests during his autopsy found traces of cocaine and cannabis.
Belgacem also had an alcohol level of 0.93g per litre of blood, nearly twice the legal limit for driving in France.
He is said to have been radicalised in prison, and was on a police watch-list.
He was involved in a shooting and then a carjacking on Saturday before he attacked a military patrol at Orly, Paris’s second-biggest airport.
The suspect’s criminal record included convictions for armed robbery and drugs offences, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters late on Saturday.
In an interview with French radio Europe 1 on Sunday, a man identified as the suspect’s father said Belgacem wasn’t a practising Muslim and drank alcohol.
“My son was not a terrorist. He never prayed, and he drank. But under the effects of alcohol and cannabis, this is where one ends up,” the father said.
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Europe 1 did not give his name.
The father was released from police custody overnight on Saturday, while Belgacem’s brother and a cousin were released later on Sunday.
The sequence of events
Early on Saturday morning, Belgacem was stopped at a checkpoint in Garges-les-Gonesse, north of Paris.
He fired at police with a pellet gun before escaping in a car that was later found abandoned.
Police say he then stole a car at gunpoint from a woman at Vitry, south of Paris. That car was later found at Orly airport. BBC
