One dead after car crashes into bus stop
MARSEILLE: One person was killed and another seriously injured in the southern French city of Marseille yesterday after a van ploughed into people at two different bus stops, police sources, adding that the suspected driver had been arrested.
Marseille’s prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux said that investigators had no “element pointing to a terrorist attack” and that the driver was believed to suffer from “psychiatric” problems.
“He was found with a letter from a psychiatric clinic and we are leaning towards treating it as a mental health case,” Tarabeux told AFP.
The vehicle first drove at speed towards a bus stop in the city’s northern 13th district at around 9am, leaving one person seriously hurt.
The driver then continued onto the eastern 11th district, where he drove at another bus stop, causing one fatality.
Julien Ravier, mayor of the 11th and 12th districts, told the BFMTV news channel that the victim in the Marseille incident was a woman in her 40s who was waiting alone for a bus.
A police source said the driver was in his mid- 30s and was not from Marseille. He was known to police for minor offences.
BFMTV reported that a bystander noted the registration number of the van, which the police used to trace the vehicle to the city’s Old Port district, where the suspect was arrested. – AFP