And holds shoppers hostage in rampage
to try to persuade him to surrender. “She’s gone to talk to him, to try to get him to drop his weapons and give up,” said a source at the scene.
But attempts at negotiation came to an abrupt end when gunshots rang out shortly after 2pm.
Police special forces stormed building, shooting Lakdim dead.
Praising the actions of the injured gendarme, French interior minister Gerard Collomb said outside the supermarket: “It was an act of heroism of the kind that we have become used to from the gendarmerie.”
Lakdim, also of Moroccan descent, lived with his parents and four sisters in a flat on an estate in Carcassonne. the The home was raided yesterday. A neighbour said she had seen Lakdim taking one of his younger sisters to school that morning.
The young radical was known to French intelligence services. There were unconfirmed reports he had travelled to Syria, French media said.
Lakdim was said to have been in a state security “S-file”, suggesting the intelligence services at some point considered him a potential threat. He spent a short time in prison in 2016.
Mr Collomb said: “He was known for petty crimes.”
In a press conference last night Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said a suspect had been arrested. Officers gather outside the supermarket after the killing spree