Al Jazeera staffers arrested in Paris for flying drone

Three journalists for TV station Al Jazeera are arrested in Paris after flying a drone from a park on the edge of the city, a judicial source says.

“The first was piloting the drone, the second was filming and the third was watching,” says the source.

The arrests come after multiple drone sightings over the capital for the past two nights, although there was no immediate suggestion that the arrested journalists were linked to the earlier incidents.

The trio are apprehended in the Bois de Boulogne, a park on the western edge of the city.

Flying drones over the French capital is banned by law, and the latest sightings come at a time of heightened vigilance following last month’s jihadist attacks.

The names and nationalities of the three journalists from Al-Jazeera’s international service are not given. They are aged 34, 52 and 68.

A police source says witnesses and security forces reported at least five sightings overnight Tuesday to Wednesday over central Paris — that may have been the same drone or several.

The tiny aircraft were spotted near the US embassy, not far from the Invalides military museum, the Eiffel Tower and several major thoroughfares leading in and out of the French capital, the source adds.

Authorities have been left scratching their heads as they remain unable to catch any of the operators or determine whether the flyovers are the work of pranksters, tourists or something more malicious.

There were five separate drone flights over parts of Paris the previous night.