Iken was not extremist, says colleagues

Residents in the province of Akbou were shocked as French authorities identified journalist Farid Iken as the attacker of a policeman with a hammer in Paris.

El Watan’s journalist Djamal Alilat said on his Facebook page “I was shocked when I learnt that the attacker is someone I have known for a long time. He had been working for the newspaper for many months. He was a skilled and serious journalist. He was a very kind and calm man.”

Representative of the National League for Human Rights Said Salhi said “As I know the person very well, I refuse to believe that he is the attacker. He had never been tempted by extremism. He had always been attracted by human rights, democracy and modernity.”

“Did he really attack the policeman for religious reasons?” he added.

Iken was accused of attacking a policeman with a hammer on Tuesday outside Notre-Dame in Paris.

The 40-year-old journalist has a licence degree in Translation and another one in Journalism. In 2000, he travelled to Sweden where he worked in media and obtained a master degree in information and communication.

He returned to Algeria in 2011 and founded a news website Bejaia Today. He worked as a correspondent for two newspapers before going to France to pursue his doctoral studies.