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Father of Bataclan killer: 'I would have killed him'

Ben McPartland
Ben McPartland - [email protected]
Father of Bataclan killer: 'I would have killed him'
Photo: Screengrab/BFM TV

The shamed father of the third attacker who killed 90 concert-goers at the Bataclan said if he had known what his son was going to do, he would have killed him earlier.

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Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper the father of the 23-year-old Foued Mohamed Aggad said that he would have rather his son had died in Syria or Iraq than return to France and commit the atrocity at the Bataclan.

Saïd Mohamed-Abbag said: "What human being could do that? If I had known that one day he would do something like that, I would have killed him earlier.”

Earlier on Wednesday Abbag’s 23-year-old son Foued was identified as the last of the three attackers at the Bataclan, after Samy Animour, 28 and Ismaël Omar Mostefai, 29 had previously been named as his accomplices.

Foued was originally from Strasbourg, but became radicalized and then travelled to Syria with his brother and some others from the area in late 2013.

While the others in his group were either killed or returned home to face prison, Foued remained in Syria until he headed back to France to take part in the Paris attacks on November 13th.

His family only suspected he may have been involved in the attacks when his mum received a text message from a Syrian number which said her son had died a "martyr" in Paris.

She then contacted police who took DNA samples from the family.

“He lied to us,” said his father. “He led us to believe he was going on holiday, but instead went to Syria. Since 2013 I haven’t been able to sleep.

“He was a quiet child. He was born and raised in France. He was educated in France.”

He presumed that his son would die in a bombing raid in Syria or Iraq, rather than head back to France.

The last time they had contact was four or five months ago during a phone conversation.

“As usual he said nothing of his daily life, where he was or what he did. He just answered every question OK, OK and spoke of jihad."

After a while the father lost all contact with his son.

“What can you do? It was not him anymore. It was someone else whom I was speaking to. It was someone who had been brainwashed. It served no purpose to try and communicate with him,” said Saïd.

Like his brother Karim, the first sign that Foued had become radicalized was when he began to grow his beard and pray.

“We could not imagine what would happen next. Honestly, we couldn’t understand it and couldn’t see this coming.”

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