Thousands of Kurds attend Paris funeral for victims of racist attack
Paris, Jan 3 (EFE).- Thousands of Kurds from different parts of France and across Europe were in Paris Tuesday for the funeral for three members of the Kurdish community who were killed in the French capital on December 23.
The incident is being investigated as a racist attack by a 69-year-old man who had just been released from prison.
The funeral ceremony was held in the town of Villiers le Bel, on the outskirts of Paris, in a hall where the coffins of the two men and the murdered woman were surrounded by flags of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and an image of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey.
Most of the attendees had to follow the ceremony from outside, where large screens had been installed, due to the large crowd.
Emine Kara, a former fighter against the Islamic State in Syrian Kurdistan; the singer and political refugee Mir Perwer; and Abdulrahman Kizil were shot on December 23 outside a Kurdish cultural center, a few hundred meters from the busy Gare du Nord train station.
The alleged perpetrator of the massacre is William Malet, who was arrested a few minutes later and is being held by police. He had been released from prison in early December after spending a year in custody for an attack on a migrant camp.
Nearly a decade ago, three Kurdish political activists were killed at the same cultural center, with many suspecting the Turkish secret services of being involved.
A Turkish national believed to have worked for Turkey’s intelligence services was arrested in connection to that incident. He died of cancer in prison in France while awaiting trial.EFE
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