New fears as terror suspect is shot dead at city airport
PARIS was gripped by a fresh terror alert yesterday when a ‘career criminal’ with links to radical Islam shot and injured a policeman before being gunned down by soldiers at Orly airport.
Convicted drug-trafficker Ziyed Ben Belgacem, who was on a terror watch list, was shot and killed after he seized a weapon from a female soldier at Orly.
Seconds before his death, Belgacem shouted: ‘I am here to die by Allah. In any case, there will be deaths.’ Earlier, he had opened fire on police with a shotgun – hitting a male officer in the head – when they stopped him in his car in a Paris suburb.
The 39-year-old, who had served time for armed robbery and is thought to have been radicalised in jail, sped away and abandoned his car, before hijacking a second to get to Orly. He texted his brother and father to say: ‘I’ve done something stupid, I’ve shot at people and they’ve shot back at me.’ Once inside the airport, he held a 9mm revolver to the soldier’s head, using her as a shield and grabbing her automatic assault rifle, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins. The attacker also carried a container of petrol, which he threw to the ground, and a copy of the Koran. French soldiers fired eight rounds to kill him. The soldier was ‘psychologically shocked’ but unhurt by the ‘rapid and violent’ assault, a military spokesman said. Orly was put on lockdown after the drama, with dozens of flights cancelled.