PARIS 16 August 2017: A 12-year-old girl was killed on Monday and 13 people were injured when a car rammed into diners at a pizzeria in a village east of Paris, the local deputy prosecutor Valroger said, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur, DPA.
Deputy Prosecutor Eric de Valroger said the driver, who was arrested at the scene, had undoubtedly driven into the restaurant in the village of Sept-Sorts deliberately, said Wam.
“At this stage in the investigation, I am ruling out terrorist motives,” he added.
The injured included a three-year-old boy who had been transferred to the Necker children’s hospital in Paris in a critical condition, de Valroger said. Four of the other victims were in a serious condition.
Television pictures from the village of Sept-Sorts showed the BMW saloon almost completely inside the pizzeria, having apparently smashed through tables on an outside terrace and a glass window.
Deliberate Action
The driver was a 31-year-old from the nearby town of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, de Valroger said. The fact that he had had to exit from the road he was on and then drove into the pizzeria at speed left no room for doubt that he had acted deliberately, he added.
The incident came five days after a car rammed an army patrol in a Paris suburb, injuring six soldiers. Prosecutors are treating that as a terrorist incident.
The suspect in that incident was shot and seriously injured during his arrest on a motorway north of Paris hours later.
French security forces are on high alert after a series of terrorist attacks that have killed more than 230 people since the beginning of 2015, added DPA.
By Angel Chan