Xmas market terrorist shot dead
THE Islamist gunman who killed three Christmas shoppers in Strasbourg was reportedly shot dead by police last night.
Cherif Chekatt also injured 13 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 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 yesterday in the neighbourhood where the firefight took place.
Chekatt had gone on the run after his Christmas market rampage. A huge manhunt involved 720 police and soldiers had taken place in France and Germany, where it was thought Chekatt had fled to.
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, new details emerged of Chekatt’s radicalised background.
Security sources in France initially said that the gunman was radicalised during a 2015 prison spell for robbery after calling for inmates to practice 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 in the aftermath of the bloodbath. The 29-year- old is said to have bragged to a witness that he launched the attack to ‘avenge his dead brothers’ in Syria. Chekatt also told the Muslim driver of a taxi he hijacked that he wanted to punish ‘infidels’.