STRASBOURG SUSPECT HAS LONG HISTORY OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR
▶ Man sought for attack on Christmas market had been jailed in France, Germany and Switzerland
A police manhunt involving 720 officers has mobilised across the French region of Alsace to capture Cherif Chekatt, the man sought for the killing of three people and wounding of more than a dozen others on Tuesday evening in Strasbourg.
French experts questioned what drove Chekatt to violence. The Christmas market incident evoked memories of Salah Abdeslam, who managed to evade European authorities for almost four months from late 2015. Abdeslam was the man behind the Paris attacks in which more than 130 people were killed.
While experience of conflict in Iraq and Syria bound Abdeslam and his accomplices together as an ideologically committed ISIS cell, Chekatt’s biography reads more like that of a street thug. A full-time criminal, he served prison terms in France, Germany and Switzerland.
Court documents implicate him in the burglary of a dental clinic near Frankfurt, and of a pharmacy in Engen, close to the Swiss border, in 2016.
In 2011, he served two years for reportedly “stabbing a teenager”.
Yet as heinous as they may be, none are acts of terrorism.
According to the French press, investigators are trying to establish when Chekatt – who was reported to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack – shifted from street thug to extremist.
Born in Strasbourg, Chekatt is one of millions of citizens of North African origin – known in French as Les Maghrebins. His parents are from Morocco.
French police said Chekatt was wanted for an alleged murder in the town of Eckbolsheim, in north-east France, in August – reportedly an armed robbery that went awry. An attempt had been made to arrest him only hours before he wrought bloodshed on the Christmas market in Strasbourg.
Police officers arriving at Chekatt’s apartment found he had fled, although they seized a number of weapons, including a rifle with ammunition, a grenade and four knives. In his police mugshot, a scruffy, unshaven Chekatt stares blankly at the camera.
His delinquency appears to have started young. French media reported his first contact with the police came at the age of only 10.
A newfound religious inclination became apparent during a recent stretch in a French jail for burglary.
His proselytising and religious behaviour showed “signs of radicalisation”, said public prosecutor Remy Heitz.
“In prison he encouraged the practising of religion in a radical form, but there was nothing in his way of life to suggest he was planning to act,” said Junior Interior Minister Laurent Nunez.
Yet documents suggest his radicalisation went beyond a personal religious conviction.
Files from Paris’s General Directorate for Internal Security suggest he was involved in efforts to provide support to militants in the Middle East.
Almost 1,000 French citizens are believed to have travelled to Iraq and Syria in recent years to join ISIS. Chekatt was added to Fiche-S, a list of people French authorities believe may pose a threat to national security.
The advisory list contains about 20,000 names, yet the majority are under no sort of surveillance or monitoring.
It is a cliche that those associated with violent crime and terrorism are often described by those that knew them as quiet, shy perhaps – characteristics that would appear to be at odds with the crimes they commit.
Such was the case with Chekatt, too.
“He was quiet. He didn’t speak much and was a bit of a loner.
“He didn’t hang around unless he was with his brothers and father,” said one of his neighbours in the housing block of Les Potiers.
“He seemed normal. Just a normal guy.”
Others were not so sure of authorities’ claims he had been radicalised, as another neighbour told a British newspaper: “For us, he wasn’t radicalised – he was a thug.”
In prison Cherif Chekatt [above] encouraged practising religion in a radical form, but there was nothing ... to suggest he was planning to act LAURENT NUNEZ French Junior Interior Minister