French police have detained a former flatmate of a man arrested over an attack with a meat cleaver that left two wounded outside the former offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, a judicial source said Saturday.
Police also late Friday released another man who was close to the scene of the attack in Paris but who was confirmed to have been a witness who had "chased the assailant", the source said.
A total of seven people are now being held in connection with the attack, which came three weeks into the trial of suspected accomplices in the 2015 massacre of the newspaper's staff.
They include the "main perpetrator", who was arrested not far from the scene, prosecutors said.
France's PNAT specialist anti-terror prosecution office said Friday it had opened a probe into charges of "attempted murder related to a terrorist enterprise" against him as well as "conspiracy with terrorists."
According to PNAT head Jean-Francois Ricard, the suspect was an 18-year-old man. Initial indications were that he was born in Pakistan.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday the attack was "clearly an act of Islamist terrorism".
Charlie Hebdo has angered many Muslims around the world...
