FREED TO KILL
TERROR GUNMAN WAS STOPPED THEN RELEASED Paris police held AK-47 cop assassin in February but had to let him go
THE terrorist who murdered a policeman in Paris was arrested eight weeks ago trying to buy guns to kill officers, it emerged yesterday.
Karim Cheurfi was allowed to go free and went on to secure the AK-47 which he used to kill Xavier Jugeme with two shots to the head.
In 2015, the officer helped survivors flee the Bataclan massacre in the city.
He returned a year later for a concert to reopen the venue, saying: “This is to celebrate life, to say no to terrorists.”
Xavier died on the ChampsElysee on Thursday evening, three days before the first round of France’s presidential election is held. Two officers were injured. Cheurfi, 39, is said to have got out of a car next to a police van and opened fire through the window before officers returned fire, shooting him dead. A shotgun, knives, a Koran and a note praising Isis were found in his car.
Last night, the authorities were under pressure to explain a series of blunders.
Cheurfi had been freed 10 years early after trying to murder two police officers in a 2003 shoot-out.
And officials said he was held in Meaux, near Paris, on February 23 after informants indicated he was “seeking to obtain weapons to kill police”.
Prosecutors let him go due to a lack of evidence.
More details emerged of the French national who ran a market clothes stall, lived at home with his mum and spent hours playing video games.
Jean-Laurent Panier, his former lawyer, said: “Cheurfi was a loner. He never spoke to me about religion. He was filling his days with video games on Xbox.
“His brothers and father were concerned he was very isolated.
“But his obvious psychiatric frailty has not been taken into account enough.”
Police raided Cheurfi’s home in Chelles in eastern Paris and reportedly found “inflammatory material”.
Friends painted a picture of a troubled man.
One said: “Karim did not pray. He drank alcohol and watched jihadist propaganda.
“He blamed the police for ruining his life. He fired at police during a burglary and got 15 years. He was 20.
“He hated the police and said they had ruined his life. He would swear at officers in the street – call them b ****** s.
“He was not a good Muslim, he was a lost soul.”
Four people have been arrested. Three, thought to be the killer’s relatives, were held in Paris. One man gave himself up in Antwerp, Belgium.
Police union boss JeanClaude Delage said: “Once again, an officer has paid with his life for doing his job.”
Xavier twice went to Greece to help migrants at the height of the crisis in 2015 and 2016.
French prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve said security was fully mobilised for tomorrow’s election.
Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, naming the gunman as Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, alias “the Belgian”.