Terror suspect who beheaded his boss found hanged in prison cell

A French terror suspect who cut off his boss’s head and planted it on a fence at an industrial gas factory has been found dead in his jail cell. Yassin Salhi hanged himself, according to authorities at Fleury-Merogis prison in the southern suburbs of Paris. Salhi had been placed in solitary confinement but the authorities say he was not considered a suicide risk. The 35-year-old driver and deliveryman carried out the attack on his employer, Herve Cornara, in Isere, south-eastern France in June.

He was investigated in 2006 for radicalization, but [the investigation] was not renewed in 2008. He had no criminal record.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, speaking in June

He denied there was a religious motive for the killing, although he had been charged with terrorist offences. Born in the eastern French town of Pontarlier to North African parents, Salhi caught the attention of intelligence officers in 2005 but was apparently not deemed to be a threat. He popped up on the intelligence radar again in 2013 because of his association with people suspected of links to radical Islam. After the killing Mr Cornara and displaying his severed head between two Islamic flags, Salhi tried to blow up the US-owned Air Products factory near Lyon.

Europe beheading suspect