Train gunman charged with 'premeditated' jihadist attack

A man accused of a "targeted and premeditated" jihadist attack on a train to Paris has been charged by French prosecutors.

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

Earlier, prosecutor Francois Molins said the 25-year-old was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and 270 rounds of ammunition, as well as a Luger pistol, a bottle of petrol and a box-cutter when he boarded the train from Amsterdam.

He was spotted leaving a toilet cubicle, armed and topless, and was wrestled to the ground by two off-duty American servicemen and a 62-year-old British grandfather.

A French-American man was shot and wounded after reportedly stumbling across the attacker shortly beforehand.

The men have all since been awarded France's highest honour, the Legion d'Honneur, in recognition of their bravery.

Khazzani had initially claimed that he had only been intending to rob passengers as he was starving and living on the streets, and said he had found the weapons and mobile phone in a park where he was sleeping rough the night before.

Molins dismissed the story as "absurd" and "barely credible".