Newsie Events:-
Few days after a terror attack in France,
the french city of Lyon on Saturday, (Oct.31) witnessed another attack.
This time, a greek orthodox church priest was shot by an attacker armed with a sawn -off gun.
According to CNA news reports, Nikolaos Kakavelaki, 52 was closing the front door of the church mid afternoon when he was attacked and is now in a critical condition in a hospital, a police source who pleaded for anonymity said .
However, Lyon’s public prosecutor announced later that the attacker who fled the scene after the attack, has been arrested by the police.
“A person who could correspond to the description given by the initial witnesses has been placed in policy custody,” prosecutor Nicolas Jacquet said.
He also added that the suspect had not been carrying a weapon when he was arrested.
The priest was shot twice in the chest at point-blank range, according to sources close to the inquiry.
The motive for the attack was not clear.
Jacquet said that “at this stage, no hypothesis is being ruled out, nor favoured,”
This is coming at a time when France is already on edge after the killing of three people inside a church in Nice on Thursday and the beheading of a teacher earlier this month who had showed his class a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed on a free speech day
In a statement by the Lyon prosecutor’s office, it said that witnesses, and a passing police patrol, heard gunshots then “saw an individual fleeing and discovered a man with gunshot wounds at the back door of the church”.
The prosecutors said that an investigation had been launched, and it remains “in close contact with the national anti-terrorist prosecution”.
The small, art-deco style Orthodox church is situated in a residential area of Lyon which was especially quiet due to the new lockdown measures introduced in France on Friday to stem the growing coronavirus pandemic.
In Paris, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin opened a crisis cell meeting to consider the situation.
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