France's anti-terrorism prosecutor said on Saturday an investigation had detected signs of "latent radicalization" in an attacker who stabbed four co-workers to death with a knife at police headquarters in Paris this week.
The assailant, an IT worker at the headquarters, went on a rampage on Thursday, killing three police officers and an administrative worker, and wounding at least one other, before being shot dead by police.
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Francois Ricard, the anti-terrorism prosecutor, said his office had taken over the probe due to signs the crime was premeditated and because of the nature of the injuries found on at least one of the victims.
The prosecutor also said that the attacker had stated a desire to die.
"The context of latent radicalization" and messages of exclusively religious character the attacker sent to his wife shortly before the crime were added factors, Ricard told a news conference.
The investigation also revealed contacts between the attacker and several individuals who likely belong to an Islamist Salafist movement, Ricard said.
The killer, 45, has been identified by officials only as Mickael H.
'Deadly journey'
Officials have not said explicitly there was a terrorist motive behind the attack, but handing a case to anti-terrorism prosecutors usually indicates a terrorism link is the focus of inquiries.
In response, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe told weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche he had ordered inspectors to review the procedures in place at the police headquarters' intelligence department and anti-terror intelligence unit to detect signs of radicalization among civil servants.
Philippe also defended Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who has come under attack from French opposition parties. The far-right National Rally and the center-right Les Republicains on Saturday called for parliament to launch an investigation into Castaner.
Last Thursday, Castaner had said the attacker had exhibited no warning signs ahead of the deadly rampage.
"I am confident in Christophe Castaner, who expressed what he knew at the moment when he spoke," Phillipe was quoted as saying on Saturday.
Ricard said that during a "deadly journey," the attacker first stabbed two police officers. A third police officer was killed in another office and an administrative worker died on the stairs.
The attacker was born on the French island of Martinique and had worked at the police headquarters for several years. He was a recent convert to Islam.
The knife attack unfolded just after midday on Thursday when the attacker, on the first floor of the police headquarters, used a kitchen knife to stab three policemen before taking the stairs down to the ground floor of the building.
On the staircase, he came across two women staff, according to Le Parisien newspaper, which cited an internal police report on the incident. He stabbed both of them, fatally wounding one.
He then moved out into the courtyard of the police headquarters. There, according to the Parisien account, a policeman responsible for security at the building issued several warnings, then fired several shots at the attacker, including to his head, killing him.
The officer used a Heckler & Koch G-36 assault rifle, the newspaper reported.
The police officer who halted the attack had recently completed his training and had been in the job for only six days, Paris police chief Didier Lallement told reporters.
