A southern Afghan governor denied reports that the French shooter suspected of killing three children, a teacher and three soldiers in France had been in prison in the country, DPA reported.
On Wednesday, a jail director in southern Afghanistan said that Mohammed Mehra had escaped from the central prison of the southern province of Kandahar.
But the governor's office said that no French national of that name had been detained in the province. "We never have arrested anyone named Mohammad Mehra in the last 10 years," the office said in a statement late Wednesday.
The prison's director Ghulam Farooq on Wednesday said that the suspect was detained in 2007, and escaped in one of two jailbreaks, either in 2008 or in 2011.
Farooq was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.