The Syrian man who was shot dead by French police last week may have been involved in the sexual assaults occurred in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.

ISIS supporter Walid Salihi was arrested in 2014 in Cologne for sexually assaulting women in a night club.

Salihi is said to have ‘rubbed the behinds of females’ and touched their ‘intimate parts,’ according to a German police report.

Authorities confirmed that Salihi lived in a centre for asylum seekers in Recklinghausen, some 60 miles north of Cologne.

A friend of Salihi was arrested after the Cologne mass attacks, where hundreds of women were sexually assaulted, while there are suspicions that he may have been one of the attackers before travelling to France, according to Bild newspaper.

Salihi was shot dead when he tried to enter the police station in northern Paris shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. Police later found that he was carrying a fake bomb vest and a piece of paper pledging allegiance to ISIS.