The 38-year-old Sudanese man had made an appointment to meet the head of the Isard COS asylum centre, Cyril Pierreval. The two went to his office when employees were reportedly alerted by screams and called the police, said public prosecutor Cécile Gensac, in a statement.
Pierreval, was reportedly stabbed by the man 10 times in the chest. Although treated on the scene, the asylum centre chief, a 46-year-old father of two, died in his office.
Police arrested the Sudanese man without incident. The employees surrounded the attacker and kept him in an office after the stabbing.
The Sudanese man was known by the asylum centre, having followed his case since 2015 when he is believed to have arrived in France.
He was not known to the intelligence services.
The man had recently been denied refugee status, according to police and municipal sources said.
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According to the mayor of Pau, he had been convicted for two violent acts in 2017.
“This is the reason why his asylum application was rejected…and therefore an expulsion should undoubtedly have followed,” said Pau mayor François Bayrou.
“It’s a terrible tragedy. It is all the more shocking that the victim was hired to help these refugees,” Bayrou told local paper République des Pyrénées.
