ABC News says that Ghlam was a computer science student. But…but…poverty causes terrorism! “Paris police arrest man planning attacks on church service after he shot himself” by Harriet Alexander, Telegraph, April 22, 2015:
An Islamist extremist was arrested in France on Wednesday charged with murdering a fitness instructor and planning to carry out a terror attack on at least one Paris church later the same day.
The 24-year-old French-Algerian’s plans were exposed purely by chance on Sunday morning after he called an ambulance over a bullet injury to his leg.
The man, named by French press as Sid Ahmed Ghlam, said he had been involved in “a settling of scores”. But when police traced the blood back to his car, they found a large arsenal of loaded guns detailed plans to attack a Sunday morning congregation.
“Documents were also found and they prove, without any ambiguity, that the individual was preparing an imminent attack, in all probability, against one or two churches,” said Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, at a press conference on Wednesday.
He said that Ghlam was responsible for the murder of Aurélie Châtelain a 33-year-old fitness instructor, who was found in her car on Sunday morning, having been shot three times in the shoulder.
Mother to a five-year-old daughter, she was in Paris to attend a pilates class, and was described by her family in Caudry, 50 miles south of Lille, as “a ray of sunshine”.
DNA at the scene connected Ghlam to Miss Châtelain, said Mr Cazeneuve. In the man’s apartment, in southeastern Paris, more weapons were found as well as material linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremists.
But on Wednesday morning, before Mr Cazeneuve spoke, Ghlam’s sister was arrested in the town of Saint-Dizier, near Nancy. She was living in a tough district of the town, and French media said she too was a “known radical”.
Ghlam’s girlfriend has also been held for questioning. Ghlam had moved to France in 2009, to join his family. A computer science student, he was placed on the “S” list – meaning “Sûreté de l’État”, state security – in 2014, said Mr Cazeneuve….