EXCLUSIVE Brit hit in the eye with a hammer by Islamist fanatic was a grandfather, 65, visiting his daughter and grandchildren in Paris

• Grandfather Melvyn Cummings, 65, was suddenly attacked while visiting family

The Briton wounded in an Islamist stabbing and hammer spree in Paris was a grandfather visiting a flat linked to the embassy.

The Daily Mail has learned the UK victim was grandfather Melvyn Cummings, 65, who was with his wife visiting their daughter and two grandchildren when he was suddenly attacked.

Mr Cummings was staying at a luxury flat overlooking the river Seine and Eiffel Tower.

That fact sparked concern the kitchen knife and hammer attack by convicted terror plotter Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, 26, near the Eiffel Tower on Saturday evening, was targeted.

The terrorist – jailed for five years in 2016 for planning atrocities – had shortly before his onslaught posted a video online pledging his allegiance to the Isis terror group, alongside other recent posts objecting to Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The Daily Mail has learned the UK victim was grandfather Melvyn Cummings, 65, (right) who was with his wife visiting their daughter and two grandchildren when he was suddenly attacked

Rajabpour-Miyandoab, left, who had severe psychiatric problems and who was meant to be under surveillance by France ‘s intelligence services, set upon Collin, right, in front of his wife

A man was stabbed to death and two other tourists injured in the frenzied attack in Paris

And on Saturday night, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, he began his bloody onslaught, screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’, ‘God is Great’, throughout.

Rajabpour-Miyandoab, who has been receiving psychiatric treatment and was under surveillance, began by stabbing to death a 24-year-old German/Filipino tourist identified only as Collin B.

Nurse Collin, who worked in a retirement home in Germany, was murdered in front of his wife shortly after they had visited Disneyland and the Louvre on a dream holiday.

As onlookers started summoning help from nearby armed police, Rajabpour-Miyandoab ran across the Seine on the Bir-Hakeim bridge, which featured in hit film Last Tango in Paris.

On the other side of the river, the terrorist ran past the luxury block where Mr Cummings, of Dover, was staying.

At that moment, Mr Cummings was on the pavement outside with his wife and their daughter.

The cowardly fanatic was reported by the Parisien newspaper to have struck him in the eye with the hammer, from behind.

He was rushed to Paris’s specialist eye hospital, but has since been discharged and is being cared for by his wife and daughter.

Terrorist Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab – jailed for five years in 2016 for planning atrocities – had shortly before his onslaught posted a video online pledging his allegiance to the Isis terror group, alongside other recent posts objecting to Israel ’s invasion of Gaza

French police attend the scene following the terrorist knife attack near the Bir Hakeim bridge and Quai de Grenelle

French gendarmes patrol the Trocadero plaza on the opposite bank of the Seine from the Eiffel Tower following the bloodbath on Saturday

Also injured in the attack was a 60-year-old French father called Thierry who had been out walking with his wife and child.

Rajabpour-Miyandoab was finally tasered to the ground by police a hundred yards from Mr Cumming’s holiday residence, after help from a taxi driver.

Father-of-three Mr Cummings, who had coached youth football in his native Dover, moved with retired midwife Sue, 62, to southern France four years ago.

But their idyllic new life was disturbed first by Covid – then, amid a walk by the beautiful Seine, by terror.

The Daily Mail was told: ‘It was on the pavement outside the flat where he was staying. They’re now satisfied it was not targeted, and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Mrs Cummings, still in Paris caring for her husband, last night said she did not want to comment, and referred our enquiry to the UK embassy.

There will be concern that Rajabpour-Miyandoab – born in France to Iranian parents, and converted to extremism online in 2015 – was left free to attack Mr Cummings after clear signs he remained a danger.

France’s Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, has confirmed he had officially been on an ‘S-list’, for surveillance.

A forensic police officer works at the scene on Saturday night following the terror attack in the French capital

He added that Rajabpour-Miyandoab had expressed anger at the killing of Muslims in Gaza by Israeli, and said ‘France was complicit’.

Yet the attacker was free after telling tissue-thin lies that he had lost interest in extremism, completing a ‘deradicalisation programme’ and saying in court in 2018 , Islamism was ruining my life’, and claiming he had been enjoying the forbidden joys of drinking beer and eating pork.

Yet all the while, online evidence shows, he has maintained his fanaticism, researching how to make phosphorous bombs for mass killing.

Rajabpour-Miyandoab was an online friend of other French terrorists including Larossi Aballa, who went on to stab two police officers to death in Magnanville in June 2016.

Another Facebook friend was Adel Kermiche, one of the perpetrators of the stabbing to death of a Catholic priest in Saint-Étienne du Rouvray in the same year.

Many of those linked with such crimes were, like Rajabpour-Miyandoab, on S-Files – but struck regardless.

The British embassy in Paris refused to discuss Mr Cumming’s case, but a spokesman said: ‘We have been supporting a British man who was injured in Paris and working with the authorities here.’

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