Morocco blames France for not tipping off on supermarket attacker

RABAT, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Morocco criticized French authorities Wednesday for not sharing their information on the Moroccan-French gunman who carried out deadly attacks in southern France.

"French authorities had been monitoring Radouane Lakdim, but we were not informed about his extremist behaviour. I think it was a miscommunication," Abdelahk Khiame, Director of Morocco's Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations, said in a statement.

The 25-year-old attacker went on a rampage in the towns of Carcassonne Trebes in southern France, killing three people as he hijacked a car, opened fire on police and took hostages in a supermarket before he was killed by the police.

The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Khiame said Lakdim left Morocco along with his family when he was six months old, adding that he used to visit his family members and spend vacations from time to time in the kingdom, adding that during his visits "he never raised suspicions of security services."

He noted that his last visit to his country of origin was in February 2012 "before even the creation of the so-called Islamic State group."

Lakdim was known to police for small crimes and drug-dealing. French counter-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said Lakdim had also been listed by the police as radical people since 2014 and was under intelligence monitoring in the days leading up to the attack.

He added that the surveillance did not detect any warning signs that he was going to commit a violent action or any intention to go to Iraq or Syria. Enditem