The suspect, on the run since the assault, was under a research mandate launched by the Vienna prosecutor’s office in an investigation for “attempted murder of the public authority”.
Arrested
The man was arrested smoothly at 11:30 a.m. in Charantonnay (Isère), 14 km from the assault, said a source close to the file. He was placed in police custody at the Saint-Jean-de-Bournay gendarmerie brigade, according to another source close to the file.
The assault took place in front of the home of mayor Gilles Dussault, 63. The suspect, an administer from the village of just under 1,200 inhabitants, “residing in the longtime town,” assaulted the mayor “with a stabbing weapon,” said the prosecution. The elected official presented “three wounds, including two in the thorax and a defensive wound,” said the public prosecutor.
The mayor’s vital prognosis was a time committed.
In dispute for several months
The attacker had left the scene before returning with his vehicle. He had “then tried to hit the mayor and his son who came to help him, and finished his race against a wall”, then “fled on foot” after having punched the mayor who tried to intercept him, had reported the prosecution.
According to the prosecution, with regard to the first elements of the investigation, “a dispute had been the aggressor to the municipality for several months for urban planning issues and work carried out by the latter without authorization”.