French train attack: gunman 'claimed he found AK-47 in park'

The gunman who opened fire on a train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris claimed he found the AK-47 assault rifle in a park by chance and planned to hold up the train, his former lawyer says.

Ayoub El-Khazzani is "dumbfounded" that his actions are being linked to terrorism, says Sophie David, who was initially assigned by the state to represent the Moroccan national but is no longer acting for him.

The Independent reports that El-Khazzani also denies firing a single shot during the struggle. A 51-year-old French-American academic, Mark Magoolian, is still in hospital with a gunshot wound to his neck.

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David told French broadcaster BFM-TV that El-Khazzani describes himself as a homeless man, who sleeps rough in a park in Brussels, from where he boarded the train.

"He says that by chance he found a suitcase with a weapon, with a telephone, hidden away," said David. "He said he found it in the park which is just next to the Midi Station in Brussels, where he often sleeps with other homeless people."

The lawyer added: "He planned to hold up the train, then shoot out a window and jump out to escape. When I told him about the media attention he didn't understand."

El-Khazzani, 25, was on the train with the AK-47, a 'box cutter' knife, a Luger automatic pistol and extra ammunition when he began his attack.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the first person to tackle him was a 28-year-old French banker who does not want to be named. He is said to have become suspicious because El-Khazzani was spending a long time in the train toilet with his bag.

Magoolian was the next to help, taking the man's rifle but then being shot in the back of his neck with the handgun. The Sorbonne professor is still in hospital and it is feared he has lost some function in his left arm.

Three American friends – two of them off-duty servicemen – then ran the length of the train carriage, some ten metres, towards El-Khazzani as he struggled with the rifle, which they believed might be jammed.

The three men – Alek Skarlatos, 22, Spencer Stone, 23, and Anthony Sadler Jr, also 23 – floored the gunman and "beat him until he was unconscious", said Sadler. El-Khazzani succeeded in almost severing Stone's thumb with the knife. It was reattached in hospital.

The three Americans were helped by 62-year-old South-Africa-born Briton, Chris Norman, who used his necktie to bind El-Khazzani's arm.

All four were given France's highest honour, the Legion d'Honneur by president Francois Hollande today.

Hollande said he had invited Magoolian to have dinner when he had recovered and would be presenting him with the award as soon as possible in a separate ceremony.