French prosecutor confirms IS link to factory beheading

A French prosecutor confirmed on Tuesday that the man who beheaded his boss and tried to blow up a gas factory in Lyon had a “terrorist motive” and links to the Islamic State group in Syria.

The investigation “indicates a terrorist motive in Yassin <g data-gr-id="12">Salhi’s</g> act, even though it is justified by personal considerations,” said Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molins. The 35-year-old, long known to security services for his radical views, was arrested Friday after an attack in which he rammed his gas-filled delivery van into a warehouse containing dangerous chemicals, causing an explosion.

Firefighters alerted by the blast found him trying to open gas bottles inside the Air Products factory, shouting “Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), before making the grisly discovery of the severed head of <g data-gr-id="16">Salhi’s</g> 54-year-old boss Herve <g data-gr-id="17">Cornara</g>. “<g data-gr-id="18">Salhi</g> decapitated his victim, he hung the head on a fence to get maximum publicity, as he told us during interrogation,” said Molins.