French police have detained a suspect linked to the attack on Nikolas Kakavelakis, a Greek citizen and orthodox priest, according to the newspaper Le Parisien. The newspaper reported, citing sources, that the suspect is a 40-year-old man with Georgian citizenship, referred to as Georgi P.
The suspect was arrested by the judicial police at his home in Lyon's 1st district, a week after another suspect linked to the attack was detained by the authorities. He admitted to shooting the victim, saying it was an act of revenge, but noted that he didn't intend to kill the priest.
Kakavelakis was attacked in the 7th district of Lyon on Saturday afternoon, as he was closing the church. The perpetrator, armed with a sawed-off shotgun, fired his weapon twice and fled the scene, while the priest was taken to hospital in serious condition.
Several violent attacks have shocked France over the past month: last week, a 21-year-old Tunisian man killed three people in a knife attack in the Notre-Dame de Nice Basilica. Two weeks before that, a teenager of Chechen origin killed a history teacher, Samuel Paty, and decapitated him for showing caricatures of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad to teach his students about freedom of speech.
President Emmanuel Macron addressed the incidents by stressing that he would fight against radical Islam and religiously-motivated violence, prompting a backlash from Muslim politicians across the world.
DETAILS TO FOLLOW