Islamist kills French officer who took place of hostage
PARIS: France will pay a national tribute to a security officer who died from gunshot wounds after voluntarily taking the place of a female hostage during a supermarket siege by an Islamist militant, President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.
Arnaud Beltrame (44), a gendarme who once served in Iraq, had been raced to hospital fighting for his life after being shot by the shooter during the siege at the Super U store in the southwestern town of Trebes near the Pyrenees mountains.
His actions were described as heroic by politicians across the political spectrum.
‘‘He fell as a hero, giving up his life to halt the murderous outfit of a jihadist terrorist,’’ Macron said in a statement on Saturday.
The attacker was identified by authorities as Redouane Lakdim, a 25yearold Moroccanborn French national from the city of Carcassonne, near Trebes, where he struck on Friday. He was shot dead by police.
Lakdim was known to authorities for drugdealing and other petty crimes, but had also been under surveillance by security services in 20162017 for links to the radical Salafist movement.
The attacker’s rampage began when he shot the occupant of a car he stole and fired on a group of police joggers, wounding one. He then headed to a supermarket where he killed two people, an employee and a client, bringing Friday’s toll to three dead and 16 injured, a government source said. Beltrame’s death from gunshot injuries took the number killed to four.