Police: Marseille attacker probably radicalized by brother

ROME – The brother of the man who killed two women with a knife outside Marseille train station last week was probably a foreign fighter in Syria and Iraq, Italian investigators said on Monday.

Italian police arrested 25-year-old Tunisian Anis Hannachi in Northern Italy on Saturday evening. He had been in Italy since Oct. 4 or earlier, police said.

His older brother, the 29-year-old Ahmed, was shot dead by a French soldier after killing the two women on Oct. 1.

Ahmed lived south of Rome with his Italian wife from 2008 to 2014, and was known to police only for "petty crimes", Italy's chief anti-terrorism prosecutor Franco Roberti told reporters.

"Ahmed never showed any signs of radicalization in Italy," Roberti said. "The investigative hypothesis we're working on is that the younger brother radicalized the older one."