An Afghan migrant on trial for the attempted murder of his 79-year-old female neighbor appeared before the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Assize Court earlier this week. Among other charges, the migrant stands accused of having repeatedly stabbed the victim on Oct. 13, 2017.
Prior to the life-threatening attack, the female victim had been living in an apartment in the commune of Oloron-Saint-Marie, in the region of Béarn in southwestern France for 25 years without incident. The attacker, Ansar Akhondi, a 26-year-old Afghan male who is said to have crossed several countries before arriving in France, had lived in the same building as the victim for eight months prior to the attack, Ouest France reports .
“We will have to check the route this man took to Oloron, since his route seems very different from that of other Afghan migrants,” said Hervé Lucbéreilh, the mayor of Oloron.
According to a report by La Rép des Pyrénées, Akhondi, after spending a year and a half in Germany, made his way to France after having his asylum application rejected. His application was reportedly rejected due to his participation in a violent altercation between migrants.
Before the incident, the victim is said to have had good relations with a group migrants — which included the migrant who tried to take her life — who lived in the same building as her. It was the other migrants who lived in the same building who alerted police to the gruesome stabbing attack.
At the hearing on Monday, the victim’s lawyer, when speaking about a possible motive for the attack, told the court: “We don’t have a sensible, understandable explanation.”
Some of the only words uttered by the Akhondi, who is charged with “attempted murder of a vulnerable person” and “violence against persons holding public authority” during the hearing were: “I did not intend to kill her.”
Akhondi, during an earlier interview with authorities following his arrest, said that he had taken cannabis before the attack and that he wasn’t in his normal state of mind. He claimed that around the time of the attack, he consumed “massive amounts” of intoxicants — up to one liter of vodka per day along with 20 joints. However, the toxicology screen which took place after his arrest showed that there was hardly any trance of either substance in his body
Another migrant living in the same building who was interviewed by police said that Akhondi had suddenly gone crazy.
After stabbing the victim repeatedly, the knife-wielding migrant also attempted to attack the young gendarme who was first to arrive at the scene of the crime. The female gendarme, aged 20 at the time, recalled being “afraid for her life”.
Psychiatrists who evaluated Akhondi noted that he exhibited “anti-social’ personality traits, describing him as a “fragile”, “sad”, and “morose” man.
Akhondi’s trial is expected to conclude on Wednesday, Dec. 2.
