Source: The New York Times

PARIS — Depending on who is telling the story, Daoud Muradyan, a blind 21-year-old, is either a potential terrorist or a harmless immigrant who embodies everything that is wrong with France’s broad new antiterrorism powers.

Mr. Muradyan came under suspicion after having contact with a radical imam, the French authorities say. They also say that he recently traveled to a part of Brussels where several of the attackers in the Nov. 13 Paris assaults had lived, and that he had five cellphones and four USB memory sticks in his possession when the police raided his home in the southeastern city of Avignon.

But Mr. Muradyan, who converted to Islam and moved to France from Armenia in 2007, says he just likes to buy electronics and travel a bit. “The policemen were very mean when they came in, very mean and scornful,” he said, recounting the search of his home. “They broke everything.”