Strasbourg attacker shot dead by police
THE Islamist gunman who killed three Christmas shoppers in Strasbourg was reportedly shot dead by police last night.
Cherif Chekatt also injured 13 people in a gun and knife rampage at a Christmas market in the French city on Tuesday evening.
After a two-day manhunt, he was killed in the Neudorf-Meinau area of the city in a shootout with police at about 8pm.
One official said the suspect opened fire before officers responded, killing him. Another official said the suspect was armed with a pistol and a knife. Police had earlier conducted a search in the neighbourhood where the firefight took place yesterday.
Chekatt had gone on the run after his market rampage. A manhunt involving 720 police and soldiers had taken place in France and Germany, to where, it was thought, Chekatt had fled.
French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux had earlier said: ‘It doesn’t matter [if he is taken dead or alive]. The best thing would be to find him as quickly as possible.’
As a fifth suspect was arrested in connection with the attack last night, details emerged of Chekatt’s radicalised background.
Security sources in France said the gunman was radicalised during a 2015 prison spell after calling for inmates to practise a ‘radical form of religion’. But authorities had found a poster of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden hanging on his wall during a separate prison spell in 2008, according to French newspaper Le Parisien.
The career criminal, who has 27 convictions, spent a total of four years in jail in prisons across Europe. Two of his 12 siblings are also reportedly on a terror watch list designed for individuals who pose a serious risk.
Chekatt’s parents and two brothers were taken in for questioning. The 29-year-old is said to have bragged that he launched the attack to ‘avenge his dead brothers’ in Syria. Chekatt also told the Muslim driver of a taxi he hijacked he wanted to punish ‘infidels’.
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