France: Two charged over arms supply to airport attacker

The suspects, aged 30 and 43, were charged on Friday for 'association with terrorist criminals'.

Paris, Mar 25: French anti-terrorism judges have charged two men suspected of involvement in supplying a weapon to the gunman killed at Paris's Orly airport after attacking soldiers, a judicial source said on Saturday.

The suspects, aged 30 and 43, were charged on Friday for 'association with terrorist criminals' over the March 18 attack and are being held in custody, the source said.

The younger one was also charged with arms possession related to a terror plot. They are both from the Paris area and lived close to the assailant, Ziyed Ben Belgacem, according to a preliminary investigation. Ben Belgacem, 39, was under the influence of drugs and alcohol when he attacked the capital's second busiest airport, according to judicial sources.

Ben Belgacem, born in France to Tunisian parents, grabbed a soldier on patrol at Orly's southern terminal and put a gun to her head and seized her rifle, saying he wanted to 'die for Allah'. His father insisted his son -- who had spent time in prison for armed robbery and drug-dealing -- was not a extremist.

He had, however, been investigated in 2015 over suspicions he had been radicalised while serving jail time, but his name did not feature on the list of those thought to pose a high risk. The attack at Orly came with France still on high alert following a wave of jihadist attacks that have claimed more than 230 lives in two years.

The violence has made security a key issue in France's two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7. Soldiers guarding key sites have been targeted in four attacks in the past two years but escaped with only minor injuries. In mid-February, a machete-wielding Egyptian man attacked a soldier outside Paris's Louvre museum, injuring him slightly, before being shot and wounded.

PTI