A man with a knife, known to suffer from psychiatric disorders, took two women hostage on Monday in a hardware shop in rue d'Aligre in Paris, one of whom was released unharmed, police headquarters announced in the evening.
Negotiations led by the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) are continuing to free the second hostage, the police said. The first was released shortly before 10pm on Monday night.
The kidnapper is an individual known to have mental disorders, and is believed to be in his fifties. Given his psychiatric profile, police have ruled out terrorist motivations.
The man is notably known to the police for having harassed a local doctor at his medical office, according to a second police source.
After entering the shop shortly before 3.30pm, the man first asked to "speak to the Minister of Justice", Eric Dupond-Moretti, according to the two police sources.
"Following the hostage-taking in the 12th arrondissement, the minister obviously let the negotiators know that he was at their disposal," said the entourage of the Keeper of the Seals.
He also spoke, at his request, with Sylvie Noachovitch, the lawyer of the former gardener Omar Raddad convicted in 1994 for the murder of a rich widow, Ghislaine Marchal, in Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes). Justice ordered last Thursday to relaunch the investigations in this case, the first step before the review of the trial.
"He admires her a lot and thinks she is a very good lawyer," a source close to the investigation told AFP.
Since the start of the hostage situation, access to the rue d'Aligre, known for its many food shops and its market, was blocked by police officers and the perimeter was also secured by soldiers from the Sentinel force deployed as part of the Vigipirate plan, noted an AFP journalist.
An investigation was opened including the head of "kidnapping" and was entrusted to the police station of the 12th arrondissement, said the Paris prosecutor's office .
