PARIS (Reuters) – A suspected accomplice of a man believed to have attacked and wounded two people with a meat cleaver on Friday in front of a Paris office building has been released, a judicial source told Reuters.
The source added another person close to the suspected attacker and believed to have been a former roommate in a hotel north of Paris had been arrested, following a series of other arrests on Friday evening.
On Saturday morning, seven people remained in custody including the suspected attacker.
The attack took place in front of a building where Islamist militants gunned down employees of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, sparking concerns over a possible news series of deadly attacks in Paris and elsewhere.
Police quickly detained the man suspected of carrying out the attack next to the steps of an opera house about 500 metres away.
The suspected attacker was from Pakistan and arrived in France three years ago as an unaccompanied minor, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.
A second suspect was detained moments after the attack and prosecutors were trying to establish his relation to the attacker. He was released free of charge, the source said.
(Reporting by Matthias Blamont; editing by Jason Neely)
