French prosecutors said a Pakistani national detained after an attack on two people with a meat cleaver last Friday outside the former Paris premises of Charlie Hebdo is aged 25 and not 18 as he first claimed, and that he told investigators he went to the location, believing it to be still the site of the magazine, to attack staff and set fire to their offices in retaliation for the re-publication of cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammed.
An 18-year-old of Pakistani origin arrested on suspicion of carrying out an attack with a meat cleaver on Friday against a man and a woman outside the former premises of Charlie Hebdo magazine said he mistakenly believed they were journalists from the magazine, according to judicial sources, and acted in revenge for its republication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed ahead of the trial opened this month of alleged accomplices of the jihadists who carried out the January 2015 shooting massacre in and outside the offices that left 12 dead.
British and Egyptian tourists were among seven people stabbed on Sunday night in a popular canal-side location in Paris by a man believed to be an Afghan national who was chased and overpowered by members of the public, notably pétanque players who reportedly threw their iron balls at the assailant's head.
