Train attack suspect known to authorities in 3 countries

‘My friend yells, ‘Get him!’ . The men tackled and subdued him and he was taken into custody in France.

The award will be made when Hollande meets the men in the morning, a member of the president’s entourage said after it was revealed that one of the Americans, Spencer Stone, likely also had saved the life of a fellow passenger. “So were we”.

The White House said Obama spoke Saturday by phone with Stone to wish him a speedy recovery and to extend the gratitude of all Americans for his “extraordinary bravery” aboard the train.

The French people, emergency services and medical staff had been “great”, Mr Stone, who was sporting a badly-bruised right eye and an arm in a sling, said.

French authorities said he had lived in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras, frequenting a mosque which is under surveillance there.

“If anybody would have gotten shot, it would have been Spencer for sure, and we’re very lucky that nobody got killed, especially Spencer”, Skarlatos said.

Sadler sounded skeptical when asked if it might have been a robbery and not terrorism. The weapons he found, allegedly, included the AK-47 rifle, a pistol, nine ammunition clips and a box cutter.

Raw video from inside the train.

“A few days later he decided to get on a train that some other homeless people told him would be full of wealthy people traveling from Amsterdam to Paris and he hoped to feed himself by armed robbery”, David said. “So, so were we”, Stone said.

When the Americans charged, Norman recalled thinking “I’m probably going to die anyway, so let’s go”.

Stone said he ran down the aisle and tackled El-Khazzani. Stone said El-Khazzani then pulled out a handgun, which Skarlatos also seized.

The minister said Khazzani “lived in Spain in 2014 then in Belgium in 2015”.

PASCAL ROSSIGNOL/REUTERS Those credited with helping to stop a train attacker include Anthony Sadler (l.), from Pittsburg, Calif.; Aleck Sharlatos (c.), of Roseburg, Ore.; and Chris Norman (r.), a British man living in France.

“Hiding or sitting back is not going to accomplish anything”.

The trio said they had no choice but to react when they saw the gunman cocking his assault rifle.

Sophie David, a lawyer assigned to his case at the beginning of his detention in Arras but who is no longer representing him, said he denies firing a single shot. “Our training kicked in after the struggle”.

Blood is clearly visible on Mr Norman’s shirt during an interview for French television (AP) Mr Norman’s actions contrasted sharply with those of the French train staff, whom French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, also on the train, accused of locking themselves in their staffroom.

“I put my fingers in the hole and it work”, he said.

French President Fancois Hollande will receive the American and French men who intervened at the Elysee palace on Saturday and express “France’s gratitude” to them, his office said via Twitter.

A police officer peers into a window of the Thalys train during an investigation on a platform at Arras train station, northern France. “If it wasn’t for them I would be dead”.

He said that the gunman “clearly had no firearms training whatsoever”. Spanish newspapers El Pais and El Mundo both reported that he had lived in the relatively poor neighbourhood of El Saladillo, which has around 6,000 inhabitants and an unemployment rate close to 40 per cent.

Mr Sadler described the gunman as “shirtless and skinny”, and he “never said a word”.

Sadler said he was the last of the three Americans to join the fray.

“I was facing towards the back and then a stood up to see what was happening”.

“I’m so proud of (my son)”.

Skarlatos, who served in Afghanistan, said that when he examined the assault rifle, he found that the gunman had tried to fire it but that it didn’t go off because it had a bad primer.