Paris rabbi’s attacker had assaulted another Jew, security service says

The Iranian man who attacked a rabbi in Paris had assaulted another French Jew in the same area several days earlier, the French Jewish community’s security service said.

The alleged attacker, who was arrested April 23 for lightly wounding the rabbi and his son with a knife, had struck a young man four days earlier with an iron bar as the victim was exiting a Paris synagogue, according to a statement Tuesday by the SPCJ security service. The victim of the first attack was hit several times on the head.

The rabbi who was attacked last week suffered a cut to his throat and his son received cuts to his upper body.

Police were able to establish a link between the two incidents due to video surveillance, SPCJ said.

SPCJ also said the alleged attacker, who is in his late 20s, had escaped from a psychiatric institution near Lyon, in eastern France, last month.