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European countries to increase security checks on trains following attack

European ministers have agreed to increase security on key international rail routes and improve intelligence sharing after the thwarted gun attack on a French train.

Three Americans and a British grandfather managed to overpower a suspected Islamist gunman who opened fire on a high-speed train heading to Paris last week.

Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani has been charged with attempted murder of a terrorist nature and was remanded in custody after a hearing in the capital.

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Train gunman 'only meant to rob people', says lawyer

The gunman who was disarmed by passengers on a train in France said he had only meant to rob people, a lawyer who interviewed him after the attack said on Sunday.

Police apprehend Ayoub el Khazzani on train platform. Credit: Twitter/Christina Cathleen Coons

"He is dumbfounded by the terrorist motives attributed to his action," lawyer Sophie David who described him as her client, told BFMTV.

She said he was barefoot and wearing only a white hospital shirt and a boxer shorts for the interview at a police station in Arras, northern France, where the train stopped after the incident.

The man, named by French and Spanish sources close to the case as Ayoub el Khazzani, told David he found the Kalashnikov he was carrying in a park near the Gare du Midi rail station in Brussels where he was in the habit of sleeping.

"A few days later he decided to get on a train that some other homeless people told him would be full of wealthy people travelling from Amsterdam to Paris and he hoped to feed himself by armed robbery," David said.

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European countries to increase security checks on trains following attack

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