Two people have died and several others have been injured after a driver deliberately drove a car into a group of pedestrians outside the railway station in Caen, in the northern French region of Normandy.
The prefecture of Calvados confirmed the second death on the morning of August 27. An earlier count given by David Clavière, the prefect of Calvados, put the toll at one dead and 10 injured, seven of them in a critical condition.
The car was driven at people standing on the public highway opposite the station at about 10.15pm on August 26, Clavière said. The vehicle, a black German-made car, struck a group waiting near a tram stop on the Place de la Gare.
The driver fled the scene and was arrested at Ouistreham, a coastal town about 20 kilometres away. He remains in police custody.
The suspect is a 26-year-old man born in Russia. He was not known to the intelligence services and appeared in police records only for traffic offences, the prefect said.
An investigation for murder and aggravated assault with a weapon has been opened and given to the organised and specialised crime division of the Calvados police.
The deputy public prosecutor in Caen, who went to the scene, said no terrorist motive was being considered for the moment. He said the investigation was “only just beginning”.
A police source told AFP that the driver had accelerated into the group after a brawl on the square in front of the station. A witness quoted by French media said an argument had started in a bar nearby before the man returned in his vehicle.
All the victims were men aged between 17 and 40 and most were foreign nationals, according to Bruno Coutanceau, a senior security official in the city. Le Figaro reported, citing police sources, that Afghan, Egyptian and Bangladeshi nationals were among those hit.
Caen mayor Aristide Olivier said the rapid response of the police and the use of security cameras had led to the arrest. He offered his condolences to the victims and their families and thanked the emergency services.
The station district has been the subject of a heavy police presence for several months, with residents reporting a security operation there days before the incident.
Vehicles driven into pedestrians have become a recurring feature of European crime and terrorism reporting. A driver ploughed into shoppers in the German town of Hofgeismar in August, in a case police did not treat as deliberate, while a man known to officers killed two people in Leipzig in May.
