“I saw children at the end of the lake, some children on the ground. “I saw the guy opposite me, being chased by cops five or 10 metres behind him, trying to catch him,” Mr Le Tallec, who is now a coach at Annecy FC, said. “I asked them what was happening and someone told me, run, run, there is someone stabbing people,” he said. Meanwhile, former Liverpool footballer Anthony Le Tallec realised something had gone very wrong as he jogged in the park.Ībout 10 terrified people were running towards the retired forward, who also played for Sunderland. He would soon be joined by another young man, who also used his backpack as a shield to corral the disturbed man away from the playground.
The man dogged the suspect’s footsteps, distracting Abdelmasih H from his prey, and bringing closer the moment that police could make it to the scene in a wail of sirens. Today his targets were only children, women and, soon, the elderly. Strangely Abdelmasih H did not attack the young man but ran from him. One young man decided to confront the knifeman, using his rucksack to hit the attacker. A child’s shrill cry rang out in pain before the attacker sauntered away. He leaned over the pram and stabbed sickeningly downwards. “He started shouting, went towards the pushchairs and started repeatedly stabbing the children, ” Ferdinand, a witness, told BFMTV.Ĭhilling video footage of the attack shows the knifeman strolling nonchalantly around the sunny park as the screams for police and help rang out among the trees.Īs he weaved through the wooden playground, one woman was so desperate to protect a child she smashed her stroller into the side of the fence encircling the play area.īut the assailant showed no mercy, advancing towards the terrified woman, who bravely and desperately tried to fend him off to no avail. “In the name of Jesus Christ,” the refugee cried out twice in English before setting about his bloody work, scattering terrified mothers and their strollers as they scrambled for safety. But here he was in France, recently estranged, about to commit an unthinkable crime against toddlers the same age as his own. The Syrian national had successfully claimed asylum in Sweden, stating he was persecuted for his Christian religion.īack home, he had a Swedish wife and a three-year-old child. He would also turn the blade on an elderly couple before his rampage was brought to an end by armoured police. He was to use the four-inch knife, brutally and callously, on children aged 22 months, two-years-old and three-years-old. In his hand, he clutched a knife, with the blade pointed downwards. He was wearing shorts and a blue keffiyeh on his head.
Witnesses described how he “jumped out” at the enclosed playground, sending mothers fleeing with their prams and strollers. It was then that the suspect, now named in French media as Abdelmasih H, launched his chilling stabbing spree. There was no hint of the horror that was to unfold until 9.45am on Thursday morning. Residents assumed he was homeless because he had been sleeping rough near the lake and had even been seen bathing in it.Īn ice-cream seller had seen him two days ago, staring out at the lake, which is ringed by mountains.Ĭhaima Sahbi, 21, a tourism student, said: “Who hasn’t seen him? He’s been hanging around this area for months sitting around and looking at his phone,” she said, while laying flowers at the park where the attack took place.īut the bearded man had not given them any cause for concern and had certainly never shown any sign of aggression. Every day for the past two months she had noticed the same bearded man sitting on a bench in the park.īut the man, who always dressed in black and wore sunglasses, had never talked to her in all the hours he spent in the place called Le Pâquier. Everyone knows this park, it’s the beating heart of Annecy,” said Véronique Sédéfian, a grandmother of four.Īmong the locals near the lake shore were also tourists and their children including a three-year-old British girl on her holidays.Īs joggers circled and pedalos splashed nearby at the start of one of the hottest days of the year, the toddlers played happily among the slides or dozed in their prams.īy the waterside, a woman was working by the pontoons. “I took my children here, my children take theirs here. They had brought their children to one of the most popular playgrounds in the centre of a town known as the Venice, or the “pearl”, of the French Alps. For the mothers in the playground near the Pont des Amours bridge in a much-loved park in Annecy, it began like any other sunny morning.
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