Tunisian Tarek Belgacem, the man who was shot dead by the French Police in Paris last week as he approached a police station wearing a fake explosive vest, initially sought asylum in Romania, in 2011, but his request was denied by the local authorities, according to official sources quoted by Mediafax newswire.

Belgacem came to a refugee center in Romania in early 2011 and filed an asylum request under his own name. The authorities made a background check on him and decided to reject his application considering him dangerous.

The Romanian authorities held him in custody for a few months after which they escorted him to Tunisia and banned him from entering Romania for a period of five years. They also added Belgacem’s asylum request into a European database.

The authorities in Luxembourg, Germany, and Switzerland have asked the Romanian authorities for information on the Tunisian’s asylum request as he also tried to get asylum in these three countries, but under different names.

According to the German authorities, Tarek Belgacem had recently lived German refuge for asylum-seekers, posing as a Syrian or Iraqi refugee.

The Tunisian was gunned down on Thursday, January 7, as he approached a police station in Paris wearing what seemed to be explosives. The explosives turned out to be fake, but the man also had a letter on him in which he was swearing his allegiance to ISIS.

The incident took place in the same day that France commemorated one year since the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Prosecutors: Romanian detained for jihadist propaganda, willing to sacrifice his life for ISIS

editor@romania-insider.com