PARIS — A man who stabbed three soldiers guarding a Jewish community center in Nice on Tuesday had been questioned by counterterrorism officers and released just days before the attack, a senior police official said on Wednesday.
The man, Moussa Coulibaly, was arrested on Tuesday in Nice, in the south of France, after he lunged at the throat of a soldier near the Jewish center and wounded him and two other soldiers who intervened. The attack raised alarm in a country still reeling from the terrorist attacks last month in and near Paris that left 17 people dead.
Christophe Crépin, a senior police official, said Mr. Coulibaly, who was known to French counterterrorism services, had been questioned by the intelligence services in France after he flew to Turkey on Jan. 28. Turkey is frequently used as a gateway by Europeans seeking to join extremist groups in Syria. But Mr. Crépin said that no formal investigation was opened and that Mr. Coulibaly was released, as there was insufficient evidence that he posed a threat.
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“Counterterrorism authorities just can’t stop, arrest or monitor everyone,” Mr. Grignard said. “We have to make difficult choices. Some weeks we are lucky. Some weeks we are not.”
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.
