French police name arrested Paris gun suspect

French authorities have named a man arrested on suspicion of carrying out recent gun attacks in Paris as Abdelhakim Dekhar, the BBC reported. 

He was taken into custody at about 18:00 GMT from a vehicle in a car park in Bois-Colombes, north-west of Paris.

Authorities said Dekhar had been jailed in 1998 for his role in a string of fatal shootings in Paris.

Last Friday a gunman threatened a Paris TV station and on Monday attacked a newspaper office and bank HQ.

Prosecutors said late on Wednesday that samples of Dekhar's DNA matched that from the crime scenes.

They said he was not yet in a position to be questioned and the reading of his rights had been postponed.

Dekhar was arrested in a stationary car in an underground car park following a tip-off from a member of the public.

Police union official Christophe Crepin said: "My colleagues noticed he was not very lucid. They deduced that he had taken medicines, because of the capsules nearby."

Some media sources have suggested he may have attempted suicide.

The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says Dekhar is believed to have been the third man in the so-called Rey-Maupin affair, named after a young couple with links to anarchist groups who bungled an attempt to steal weapons from guards and then hijacked a taxi.

In the subsequent chase and shootout, three policemen and the taxi driver were killed, as well as Audry Maupin.

Maupin's girlfriend, Florence Rey, was released from jail a few years ago.