France Foils Possible Ricin Attack by Egyptian-Born Brothers

France Foils Possible Ricin Attack by Egyptian-Born Brothers
A forensic officer in Paris after one person was killed and several injured by a man armed with a knife, who was shot dead by police in Paris on May 12, 2018. ( Geoffery Van Der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images)
Reuters
5/18/2018
Updated:
5/18/2018

PARIS—French police have arrested two Egyptian-born brothers who were plotting an attack using either explosives or the lethal poison ricin, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said on Friday.

Collomb said French intelligence agents had intercepted communications from the two men on the secure messaging platform Telegram.

“They are two young individuals of Egyptian origin who were preparing an attack,” Collomb told BFM TV. “They possessed instructions on how to build ricin-based poisons.”

A week ago, a Chechen-born Frenchman went on a stabbing rampage in central Paris, killing one person before police shot him dead, an attack that again exposed the difficulty European intelligence services face in keeping track of suspected extremists.

More than 240 people have been killed on French soil over the past three years in attacks launched by Islamist terrorists or individuals inspired by groups like ISIS.

Collomb gave no further details on the arrest of the brothers.