FRENCH AUTHORITIES SEARCH FOR ANSWERS AFTER PARIS TERROR
French authorities are still trying to piece together how Paris terrorist and former baker Ismael Omar Mostefai became radicalised, with his estranged family saying they knew nothing of his plans.
Mostefaï, 29, was identified from a severed finger after it was torn off when he set off his suicide bomb vest during the breaking of the Bataclan Theatre siege early on Saturday morning, AFP reports.
A French national born to an Algerian father and a Portuguese mother, Mostefai reportedly grew up in the working class Paris suburb of Courcouronnes along with four brothers and two sisters.
“It was a normal family, just like everybody else,” said a former neighbour, who did not wish to be named.
“He played with my children. He never spoke about religion. He was normal. He laughed a lot.”
In his late teens he became known as a petty criminal, and between 2004 and 2010 he was arrested eight times, however he never served any jail time.
In 2010, he moved to the town of Chartres, 95km south of Paris, where he regularly attended a local mosque and worked in a bakery.
“It was in 2010, that’s when he started to become radicalised,” the neighbour said. “We don’t understand what happened.”
French authorities first red-flagged him for having radical views that year, but he dropped off the radar after moving to Algeria in 2012 with his wife and young daughter.
“He had never been implicated in a terrorist network or plot,” Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.
He is thought to have travelled to Syria in 2013, and received terrorist training.
Worshippers at the mosque near Chartres have denied having anything to do with Mostefai’s radicalisation, the BBC reports.
“We’re grieving, like everyone else,” Ben Bammou, a president of a local Muslim group, told MailOnline.
Mostefai’s father and his 34-year-old brother were placed in custody on Saturday evening and their homes were searched.
“It’s a crazy thing, it’s madness,” his brother told AFP, his voice trembling, before being taken into custody.
“Yesterday I was in Paris and I saw how this s—t went down.”
The brother turned himself in to police after learning Mostefai was involved in the attacks.
While he had cut ties with Mostefai several years ago, and knew he had been involved in petty crimes, his brother said he had never imagined his brother could be radicalised.
The brother said the last he knew, Mostefai had gone to Algeria with his family.
“It’s been a time since I have had any news,” he said.
“I called my mother, she didn’t seem to know anything.”
The death toll from the attacks sits at 132, with more than 350 injured.