A MAN who attacked a Paris police station last week had lived in a center for asylum-seekers in Germany, German investigators say, a finding likely to fuel criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal stance towards war refugees.

    The individual was shot dead by French police Thursday after he tried to storm a police station in Paris. The assault took place one year since the start of a series of jihadist attacks in France, marked by the killing of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine Jan. 7 2015.

    On Saturday, German investigators assisting the probe into the police station attack raided an apartment at a shelter for asylum-seekers in Recklinghausen, in the west of the country.

    The news site Spiegel Online reported that the man had already been classed by German police as a possible suspect after he posed at the refugee center with an Islamic State (IS) flag.

    Welt am Sonntag said the man had drawn a symbol of the IS organization on the shelter’s wall. He had used different names in separate registrations with German authorities, and filed for asylum using the name Walid Salihi, according to the newspaper.

    The man had given different nationalities at each registration, once saying he was Syrian, another time saying he was Moroccan, and on yet another occasion, Georgian.

    (SD-Agencies)