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Paris Orly airport was placed on lockdown after the suspect was shot dead inside the terminal after following an attack on three police officers earlier in the day. A French offical connected to the investigation confirmed the attacker's identity, adding he was a 39-year-old French-born national. Reports suggested he was a serial offender with 44 offences on his criminal record - his most recent being for armed robbery.

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The police source initially said the man was a radicalised Muslim who was known to the authorities. However, later the French Interior Ministry confirmed the man was on a crime watchlist, not a terror watchlist. According to the Paris prosecutor's office, he had previously been on the authorities' radar for suspected Islamic extremism. That was despite his home being one of many searched in the days after the 2015 Paris suicide attacks which saw 130 people killed.

Live images: Orly Airport Shooting Sat, March 18, 2017 Orly Airport shooting. Terror attack in Paris Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 9 A medical gurney is wheeled into Orly airport after shooting incident near Paris

Judicial sources say his father and brother have been arrested by police. Police sources say the suspect text his father and brother after the first shooting, saying: "I did a bullsh*t, I shot at the police". The family are French citizens of Tunisian descent, and believed to be living on a council-run estate in Garges-lès-Gonesse. The suspect was described by police sources as a drug-taking serial offender who had spent around 15 years of his life in prison. He was most recently released from the Fresnes Prison, in the southern suburbs of Paris in November, and was wanted by police for breaking his bail conditions. Sources also claim the suspect suffered from severe psychological issues, having expressed suicidal thoughts in the past.

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