Yassin Salhi, the French lorry driver who decapitated his boss before ramming a vehicle into a chemical plant near Lyon, has confessed to the murder – but his motives remain unclear, reports The Guardian.
He told detectives he had killed Hervé Cornara in a parking area before arriving at the plant in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, 18 miles (30km) south of Lyon, where he attempted to cause an explosion on Friday.
Salhi, 35, was transferred to Paris for further questioning on Sunday afternoon. Several French media reported that during questioning he had been “confused” as to the motives behind the attack, citing personal problems linked to family issues and his job.
The TV news channel iTele said Salhi had told police he had wanted to kill himself and stage a media coup by dressing it up as a terrorist act. The news channel said Salhi had told police he had acted alone.
Days before the attack, he was reported to have fallen out with Cornara, 54, the manager of the Lyon-area transportation company where he had been employed on a permanent contract since March. “We don’t know whether we’re dealing with a fundamentalist who flipped or a real terrorist,” one source close to the investigation told Reuters. “Investigators are wondering whether this isn’t just a simple criminal act.”
On Friday morning, Salhi, a married father of three, had rammed his van into the US-owned Air Products chemical factory in what President François Hollande said was a “terrorist” attack designed to blow up the building. He was overpowered by a firefighter as he was trying to prise open a bottle of acetone in an apparent suicidal bid to destroy the factory.
Police then found the severed head of his boss, Cornara, tied to the gates of the factory near two flags on which were written the Muslim profession of faith. The victim’s headless body was found by the van with a knife and a fake pistol lying nearby.