Gardaí investigating the stabbing attack in Dublin city centre last week that left three children and a school worker injured are still waiting for medical clearance to interview the chief suspect in the case.
However, it remains unclear when he will be well enough to be arrested and questioned.
The 49-year-old, a naturalised Irish citizen originally from Algeria, suffered serious injuries when a group of passersby intervened and wrestled a knife from him outside a school and Montessori on Parnell Square East last Thursday. As he was overpowered, he sustained several injuries, including serious head trauma.
The man, who remains under armed guard in a Dublin hospital, had previously had a brain tumour removed and in more recent years had been interacting with mental health services in the Republic. His medical history, coupled with the serious head injury he sustained last Thursday, means it remained unclear when he could be interviewed by detectives from Mountjoy Garda station.
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It is understood gardaí were not expecting to interview him imminently, though sources said that outlook could change. However, there was also a chance he would physically recover, but be left with impaired brain function, which could call into question the prospects of prosecuting him.
He is the only suspect for the stabbing, which appears to have been random, and other aspects of the criminal investigation were continuing as gardaí waited to question him.
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The man’s accommodation has also been searched and his phone and laptop analysed. To date, no clear motive and no terror link have been identified. However, gardaí believe he was loitering around a school building on Parnell Square East just before the lunchtime attack and had armed himself on the day with the specific purpose of stabbing children.
While two of the children injured in the knife attack – a five-year-old boy and six-year-old girl – have since been discharged from CHI Crumlin, the other two victims remain in serious condition in hospital.
The most serious concerns centre on the five-year-old girl who was stabbed in the chest and had to be revived at the scene. She has been gravely ill at Temple Street Children’s Hospital in the north inner city for the past week.
Though she has undergone emergency surgery, medical staff remain concerned for her recovery. The girl’s parents are from overseas and members of the extended family have flown into the Republic to support them.
The injured woman, a Dubliner in her 30s, is a school worker who was escorting a group of children when they were attacked. She used her body as a shield in a bid to protect the children, while also trying to disarm the attacker.
She sustained multiple stab wounds and has been receiving treatment in the Mater hospital, Dublin, where she is in an induced coma.
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