Christmas market terrorist shot dead
AN ARMED fugitive behind the deadly terror attack in Strasbourg was killed last night.
A police source confirmed Cherif Chekatt was dead after three gunshots were fired in the Meinau district of the French city, where a police operation was carried out on Thursday.
A police helicopter was heard scouring the skies overhead.
Chekatt shot dead three people in an attack on a Christmas market on Tuesday night.
Before the shooting took place last night police said Chekatt was wanted “dead or alive” over the attack, which also led to 13 other people to be wounded.
They hunted down the gunman to the Neudorf neighbourhood after authorities were told a taxi driver had dropped him off in the district in the city.
More than 700 officers were drafted in to carry out the manhunt, along with security forces and an elite tactical unit.
The market killings led France to put the country on alert and up its three-stage threat index to the highest level.
A total of 1,800 extra soldiers were called out on to the streets to beef up security at crowded events. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said last night that three police officers had stumbled across a man they believed to be Chekatt in the street and went to arrest him.
He turned to fire on them and they shot and killed him.
Last night it emerged Chekatt was a career criminal who kept an Osama bin Laden poster on the wall of his jail cell. Despite being under surveillance after leaving prison last year, Chekatt shot and stabbed 15 people at the market.
His attack in narrow streets lasted several minutes as he cried “Allahu akbar” and shot and lashed out at screaming passers-by. The city went into lockdown shortly afterwards.
Chekatt was wounded in a shoulder by a patrolling soldier and then fired upon by a police unit. He escaped in a hijacked taxi.
French secret servicemen had placed Chekatt, who had 27 criminal convictions, on a “threat to national security” watch list in 2016.
But this was not communicated to German authorities, who jailed him for burglary and then deported him back to his home city of Strasbourg last year.
When police raided the Strasbourg flat where Chekatt had been squatting on Tuesday morning to try to arrest him in connection with a stabbing last August, they found an arsenal of weapons, including grenades and a rifle. He launched his attack later that day. Some of the injured were fighting for their lives last night.
One of the dead was Anupong Suebsamarn, a 45-year-old Thai who had been on holiday in Strasbourg with his wife.
Chekatt, who had an Algerian background, was identified as the killer through CCTV footage and DNA evidence.
His mother, father and two brothers were in custody last night, suspected of helping him with his crimes and his getaway.