The person who was arrested on suspicion of the knife attack in France was married to a Swedish woman. She says that the man left Sweden after he did not receive Swedish citizenship.
– I don’t know what is happening to him. This is terrible. I don’t know what he’s doing there and I don’t know how he feels mentally, she says in a phone call to the AFP news agency.
In a video, the suspected perpetrator can be seen running around the park area with a knife in his hand. Four children and two adults were injured in the attack. The children are all under the age of three and are being cared for with life-threatening injuries. The suspect is said to have been married to a Swedish woman who is now telling how they met in Turkey and fell in love.
– Then we went here (Sweden). After two years we got married and then he didn’t get Swedish citizenship. Then he decided to leave the country and we divorced because I didn’t want to leave Sweden.
Filed for divorce
The man is from Western Sweden and the ex-wife says that they filed for divorce a few months ago.
– Then he left Sweden because he didn’t want to stay here. After that I don’t know much about him. He called me four months ago and he was then living in a church, she says and continues.
– He talked to us a bit, then I don’t know anything more about him. He usually disappears.
The man is said to be in his 30s and from Syria. He was wearing a Christian cross when he was arrested and allegedly shouted “in the name of Jesus Christ” during the attack, reports say Le Figaro. The prosecutors in the case say that the motive is unclear, but that it is not an act of terrorism.
– He has contact with his family but not with me, so I don’t know more.
The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that it is aware of the media information but that it has no ongoing case.
“Deprivation of liberty abroad does not necessarily have to be a matter for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” writes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an email to TV4.