Sunday, September 17, 2017
Associated Press
PARIS
Four young American tourists were attacked with acid Sunday at a train station in the French city of Marseille, but French authorities so far do not think extremist views motivated the 41-year-old woman who was arrested as the alleged assailant, the local prosecutor's office said.
Two of the female tourists suffered facial injuries during the late morning attack at Marseille's Saint Charles train station and one of the two also had a possible eye injury, a spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor's office told The Associated Press in a phone call.
She said all four of the women, who are in their 20s, were hospitalized, two of them for shock. The suspect was taken into police custody.
The spokeswoman spoke on condition of anonymity, per the custom of the French judicial system. She did not release more details about the victims, including where in the United States the tourists live.
The Paris prosecutor's office said that its counter-terrorism division has decided for the time being not to assume jurisdiction for investigating the attack. The prosecutor's office in the capital, which has responsibility for all terror-related cases in France, did not explain the reasoning behind the decision.
The spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor's office said the suspect did not make any extremist threats or declarations during the attack. She said there were no obvious indications that the woman's actions were terror-related.
The Marseille fire department was alerted just after 11 a.m. and dispatched four vehicles and 14 firefighters to the train station, a department spokeswoman said.
Two of the Americans were "slightly injured" with acid but did not require emergency medical treatment from medics at the scene, the spokeswoman said. S