Knifeman who killed four colleagues in Paris police headquarters had ‘radical vision of Islam’

The assailant, named as Mickael Harpon, a 45-year-old computer expert who worked at the Paris police headquarters, had been in contact with members of the “Salafist Islamist movement”, Jean-Francois Ricard told reporters.

The attacker “agreed with certain atrocities committed in the name of that religion” and defended the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, Ricard said.

Harpon, who was born on the French overseas territory of Martinique in the Caribbean, had also changed his attire in recent months and wished to no longer “have certain kinds of contact with women”.

Ricard said the autopsies “attest to a scene of extreme violence” in the frenzied attack, which killed three police officers and an administrative worker – three men and a woman – on Thursday in central Paris.