Meanwhile, in Paris IS fanatic kills police chief and wife then posts video on web
A terrorist filmed himself murdering a French police chief and his wife in front of their young son before posting the video on Facebook.
Larossi Abballa, 25, stabbed Jean-Baptiste salvaing, 42, in the throat and stomach on his doorstep. He then stormed inside and took wife, Jessica, 36, and their three-year-old son hostage.
Abballa barricaded himself into the house and cut Jessica’s throat in front of her son before being killed in a raid by special forces. the boy was in ‘total shock’ but alive.
During a three-hour stand- off Abballa posted a 13-minute video on his Facebook account – under the name Mohamed Ali – along with 15 pictures of his victims’ bodies. As the horrified child looked on from a sofa, Abballa wrote: ‘i still don’t know what i’m going to do with him.’
the killer, who knew his victims, ranted on social media while editing the video, saying the euro 2016 football championships would end up as ‘a cemetery’.
He said he was acting on the orders of islamic state commanders to kill people during ramadan.
Neighbours say Abballa screamed Allahu Akbar – God is Great – before being cut down by heavilyarmed elite troops.
When police raided his flat yesterday they found a ‘hit list’ of six intended targets including ‘ rappers, journalists, police officers and public personalities’.
they also found three phones and knives, one covered in blood.
in a nearby car was a Koran and a white djellaba, a loose hooded cloak often worn by Arabs. islamic state’s Amaq news agency last night released another video filmed inside the police officer’s home. in the footage, Abballa states: ‘i just killed a police officer and his wife. the police are currently surrounding me.’
Last night French police said three known associates of the killer – aged 27, 29 and 44 – had been arrested and were being questioned separately.
Monique Fohrer, a neighbour of the police commander in Magnanville, around 30 miles north-west of Paris, said she had first heard sirens at around 9pm on Monday.
she said it was ‘like something out of a war zone’, adding: ‘All we can think of is the horror for that poor boy. it is unthinkable.’
Michel Lebouc, Magnanville’s mayor, described the moment a fireman carried the couple’s son out of the family home.
‘He was panicking and was clearly traumatised,’ he said. ‘the officer and his wife were well known in the town and we are all in a state of shock.’ the boy was being cared for at the Necker Hospital in Paris yesterday. His mother was a secretary to another police chief. Abballa was a convicted extremist, who was sentenced to three years in 2013, along with eight other men, for ‘association with criminals preparing terrorist acts’.
Despite this, he spent only a few months in prison, and is thought to have maintained his links with a group sending jihadists to fight in Afghanistan.
surveillance including phone taps did not reveal ‘any suspicious activity’, let alone plans for a terrorist outrage, said Francois Molins, the Paris prosecutor. Abballa, from Mantes-la- Jolie, close to the murder scene, was frequently in trouble with the law for theft and violence.
one police source said last night: ‘the fact Jean-Baptiste was followed home and attacked before his wife was murdered suggests his killer knew him and was settling an old score.’
the murders are the first militant strike on French soil since the government imposed a state of emergency after multiple attacks on Paris in November.