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Suspect arrested in series of Paris shootings

PARIS, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- French prosecutors said Wednesday a man has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out gun attacks in Paris.

The shootings prompted a massive manhunt by hundreds of police in Paris.

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The BBC quoted prosecutors as saying the suspect strongly resembles the gunman captured on CCTV surveillance cameras.

The report said the unnamed man was arrested while in a vehicle in an underground garage in Bois-Colombes, a suburb west of Paris.

The gunman fired a shotgun at the offices of the left-wing Liberation newspaper Monday, injuring an assistant photographer, then took a driver -- a priest -- hostage after firing shots outside the Societe Generale bank headquarters, forcing the driver at gunpoint to take him to the Champs Elysees before releasing him.

Sources said the driver told police the still unidentified suspect told him he was just released from prison and was "ready for anything," Radio France Internationale reported Tuesday.

The man had a grenade and a pump-action shotgun, which he used outside the bank and at the newspaper office, where he seriously injured a 23-year-old photographer who was on his first day of work as a freelancer at the daily.

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Police distributed new pictures of the suspected gunman, who appears to be the same man who attacked the offices of the BFM-TV Friday. The suspect was described as white, of average height, 35-40 years of age, wearing glasses and with a salt-and-pepper beard.

Media outlets across Paris were under police protection, Euronews.com reported.

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