Paris prosecutor casts doubt on identity of shot man

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins cast doubt on the identity of a man shot dead by police in the capital Thursday as authorities sought to establish whether he represented a significant threat or was acting alone and without support, Euronews reported.

The man was killed on the first anniversary of deadly attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in the French capital as he tried to enter a police station wielding a meat cleaver.

An official account said the man, identified by a judicial source soon after the attack as Moroccan-born, shouted Allahu Akbar, (God is Greatest), and was equipped with what turned out to be a fake suicide belt.

Molins told a French radio station the man may have given a false identity some months ago. He also said a mobile phone found on the body was being examined and contained a German SIM card.

"I am not at all sure the identity he gave was real," Molins told France Inter radio Friday.

A judicial source said Thursday that the dead man was Ali Sallah, a Moroccan born in 1995 in Casablanca. He was homeless and known to police for theft in 2012 in the Var region of southern France.

Molins said authorities had established from fingerprints that the dead man identified himself as Sallah to police when they intercepted him last year.

However, he said a sheet of paper found on his body gave a different name, and a Tunisian nationality.

Source: MENA