‘He didn’t want to kill him’ – Officer who shot teen apologises to family as riots spread across France
The police officer who shot and killed a teenager during a traffic stop in Paris has asked the family of the boy for forgiveness.
His lawyer Laurent-Franck Lienard told BFMTV: “The first words he pronounced were to say sorry and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family.
“He is devastated, he doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people. He didn’t want to kill him.”
Mr Lienard added that his client’s detention was being used to try to calm rioters.
Why are people protesting in France – and why is there a history of rioting?
The 17-year-old victim, named only as Nahel M, was known to police for previously failing to comply with traffic stop orders, public prosecutor Pascal Prache said.
Pic: AP
He was shot during Tuesday’s morning rush hour after failing to stop when the Mercedes AMG he was driving was spotted in a bus lane in Nanterre, a small town on the outskirts of Paris.
Two police officers caught up with the car in a traffic jam and when the car tried to get away, one officer fired at close range through the driver’s window.
Nahel died from a single shot through his left arm and chest, Nanterre public prosecutor Pascal Prache said.
Unrest has spread across France as President Emmanuel Macron fights to control a spiralling crisis sparked by the shooting.
Mr Macron will hold an emergency meeting later to discuss riots which have gripped the country.
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Pic: AP
At least 667 people were arrested across France overnight..
On Thursday, 40,000 police officers were deployed across France – nearly four times the number mobilised on Wednesday.
Pic: AP
However, there were few signs that appeals from the government to de-escalate the situation were having any effect.
In Nanterre, the town on the outskirts of Paris where Nahel died, protesters torched cars, barricaded streets and hurled projectiles at police following a vigil.
Pic: AP
“Vengeance for Nahel” was scrawled across buildings and as night fell a bank was set on fire before firefighters put it out and an elite police unit deployed an armoured vehicle.
In central Paris, a Nike store was broken into, resulting in the arrests of 14 people.
Sixteen more were arrested with stolen objects after store windows were smashed along the rue de Rivoli shopping street.
National police said on Thursday night that officers faced new incidents in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille, including fires and fireworks.
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France has stopped public transport and deployed 40,000 officers
Videos on social media showed numerous fires across the country, including at a bus depot in a suburb north of Paris and a tram in the eastern city of Lyon.
In Marseille, France’s second busiest city, police fired tear gas grenades during clashes with youths in the tourist hotspot of Le Vieux Port, the city’s main paper La Provence reported.
Unrest even spilled over into neighbouring Belgium with around a dozen arrested and riot police deployed on the streets of Brussels.
Police patrol in a street after scuffles in central Brussels. Pic: AP
The incident has fed longstanding complaints of police violence and systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies from rights groups and within the low-income, racially mixed suburbs around major cities in France.
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The local prosecutor said the officer involved had been put under formal investigation over voluntary homicide and would be held in prison in preventive detention.
Under France’s legal system, being placed under formal investigation is akin to being charged in the UK.
Pic: AP
Unrest also erupted in Marseille. Pic: Radio Euro Maghreb
At a march in Nanterre in memory of Nahel, participants railed against what they perceived as a culture of police impunity and a failure to reform law enforcement in a country that has experienced waves of rioting and protests over police conduct.
Riding atop a flatbed lorry, the teenager’s mother waved to the crowd wearing a white T-shirt reading “Justice for Nahel” and the date of his death.
“I have nothing against the police. I have something against one person, he who killed my son. He did not have to kill my
son,” Nahel’s mother told France 5 television after the march.
Tuesday’s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023, down from a record 13 last year, a spokesperson for the national police said.
The Pope has said he is “deeply saddened” by the deaths of three people in an Israeli strike on the only Catholic church in Gaza.
A further nine people were wounded when the Gaza’s Holy Family Church was hit, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said in a statement.
“On behalf of the entire Church of the Holy Land, we extend our deepest condolences to the bereaved families, and from here, we offer our prayers for the swift and full recovery of the wounded,” the statement reads.
“The Latin Patriarchate strongly condemns this tragedy and this targeting of innocent civilians and of a sacred place.
“However, this tragedy is not greater or more terrible than the many others that have befallen Gaza.”
Parish priest Father Gabriele Romanelli, an Argentinian who used to regularly update the late Pope Francis about the conflict in Gaza, was lightly injured in the attack.
Parish priest of the Church of the Holy Family, father Gabriele Romanelli, receives medical attention.
Pic: Reuters
In a telegram for the victims, Pope Leo said he was “deeply saddened” and called for “an immediate ceasefire”.
The Pope expressed his “profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region,” according to the telegram, which was signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told the Vatican News website that the church was shelled by a tank.
“What we know for sure is that a tank, the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the Church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin Church”, he said
The church was sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including a number of children with disabilities, according to Fadel Naem, acting director of Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the wounded.
Pope Leo XIV. File pic: Reuters
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it was “aware of reports regarding damage caused to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and casualties at the scene. The circumstances of the incident are under review”.
“The IDF makes every feasible effort to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian structures, including religious sites,
and regrets any damage caused to them,” the statement added.
Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement on X that the results of the investigation would be published.
It also said the country did not target churches or religious sites and regretted harm to them or civilians.
The previous pope, Francis, spoke almost daily with Gaza church. In the last 18 months of his life, Francis would often call the church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war.
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At least 20 more people were killed on Thursday by Israeli attacks across the besieged enclave, medics said.
Throughout the 21-month war, more than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military campaign, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Israel launched a retaliatory campaign against Hamas following the militant group’s 7 October 2023 attacks, during which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
World
Syria’s president vows to protect Druze population after Israel airstrikes – as new ceasefire begins
Syria’s president has said protecting the rights of the Druze population is “our priority” after Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking the minority.
In a televised statement early today, Ahmed al Sharaa told the Druze “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
Following the president’s announcement and a ceasefire agreement, Syrian government forces on Thursday largely withdrew from the volatile southern province of Sweida.
Under the terms of the agreement, Druze factions and clerics have been appointed to maintain internal security.
As the violence escalated in Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has pledged to “act resolutely against any terrorist threat on its borders”.
The Druze population follow an offshoot of Islam and are estimated to number about one million, spread between Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
Sharaa – Syria’s interim leader after President Assad fled last year – gave a televised statement on Wednesday telling the Druze “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
“We are not among those who fear the war,” he added.
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Moment Israel strikes Syrian military HQ
“We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” said the president.
He also claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
Israel has accused the Syrian regime of being barely disguised jihadists – despite warming ties with Western countries such as the UK and US.
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The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as of Wednesday morning, more than 300 people had been killed in the flare-up of violence.
Around 1,000 Druze people broke through a fence into southern Syria on Wednesday in a bid to help, according to The Times of Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu urged people not to cross into Syria and Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir warned they would not “allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold”.
The UN Security Council will discuss the situation today, despite the US secretary of state saying yesterday that America had brokered an end to the violence.
“We have engaged all the parties involved in the clashes in Syria,” Marco Rubio said on social media.
“We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight.”
Syrian soldiers were seen pulling out of Sweida overnight. Pic: Reuters
The intervention appeared to have an immediate effect.
The situation was calm on Thursday morning, according to Reuters sources in the area.
A sex scandal has rocked Thailand’s Buddhist clergy after a woman allegedly enticed a string of monks into having sex with her and then blackmailed them.
At least nine abbots and senior monks have been disrobed and cast out of the monkhood, the Royal Thai Police Central Investigation Bureau said.
Wilawan Emsawat, in her mid-30s, is accused of enticing senior monks into having sex with her and then pressuring them into making large payments to cover it up.
Thai monks are largely members of the Theravada sect, which requires them to be celibate and refrain from even touching a woman.
Several monks transferred large amounts of money after Wilawan initiated romantic relationships with them, police said -her bank accounts received around 385 million baht (£8.8m) in the past three years, with most of that spent on gambling websites.
Wilawan was arrested at her home in Nonthaburi province, north of the capital Bangkok, on charges including extortion, money laundering and receiving stolen goods.
Thai media reported a search of her mobile phones revealed tens of thousands of photos and videos, as well as numerous chat logs indicating intimacy with several monks, many of which could be used for blackmail.
Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau holding a press conference in Bangkok. Pic: Central Investigation Bureau/AP
An investigation was launched last month after an abbot of a famous temple in Bangkok abruptly left the monkhood.
He had allegedly been blackmailed by Wilawan over their romantic relationship, investigators found.
She told the monk she was pregnant and asked him to pay her 7.2 million baht (£165,000), Jaroonkiat Pankaew, a Central Investigation Bureau deputy commissioner, said at a news conference in Bangkok on Tuesday.
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Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai ordered authorities to review and consider tightening existing laws related to monks and temples, especially the transparency of temple finances, to restore faith in Buddhism, government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said on Tuesday.
The Central Investigation Bureau has set up a Facebook page for people to report monks who misbehave, Mr Jaroonkiat said.
“We will investigate monks across the country,” he said. “I believe that the ripple effects of this investigation will lead to a lot of changes.”
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