BLUNDERS THAT LEFT HIM FREE TO KILL
Paris gunman released two months ago – after police arrested him for buying weapons on internet to kill officers
THE fanatic who murdered a Paris policeman was arrested two months ago amid fears he was plotting to kill officers, it emerged last night.
Karim Cheurfi is said to have had a pathological hatred for law enforcement and was held after buying hunting knives along with a horror mask from the film Scream.
It is thought he may have bought his terror kit on Amazon.
But the 39-year-old was released – and went on to amass a Kalashnikov, a shotgun and a hunting rifle.
Friends say Cheurfi was a violent and volatile recluse who drank alcohol, smoked cannabis and locked himself away watching jihadist propaganda on the internet. Bitter that he had no wife or children, he ‘did not pray’ and blamed police for ruining his squalid life.
Security services now face calls to explain how the French-born maniac was free to blast a policeman to death on the Champs Elysees on Thursday. Armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, he drove his Audi saloon car up to a police van and shot traffic officer Xavier Jugele.
The 37-year- old officer – who had attended the 2015 Bataclan theatre massacre – was hit twice in the head and died at the scene. Another officer sitting next to him was hit in the chest, but survived because of his bulletproof vest.
Cheurfi managed to wound a third officer as he fled before being gunned down and killed outside a Marks & Spencer store on Paris’s famed boulevard.
Police found a note the attacker had carried in his pocket praising Islamic State. The two injured officers were last night described as ‘out of danger’ and ‘stable’. IS quickly claimed responsibility for the attack and nicknamed the killer as Abu Yusuf the Belgian. It raised the spectre the jihadist group directed the attack rather than providing the inspiration. But some experts suggested the bungling terror organisation had mixed him up with one of its Belgian fanatics.
Details have now emerged of Cheurfi’s long criminal history including two spells in jail for violent offences. He was first arrested in 2001 after a road rage incident near Paris, involving an off- duty security manager and his brother. After a chase, Cheurfi fired and wounded them seriously in the chest. In custody, the attacker grabbed the gun of a policeman and left him with gunshot injuries to his lung, foot and leg.
He received a 20-year jail term on three counts of attempted murder, reduced to 15 years on appeal in February 2005. In 2009, he attacked a cellmate and was given another 18- month sentence. Despite this, the French authorities released him early in 2013. Three months later, he committed a violent robbery which culminated in another car chase with police.
In July 2014, he was sentenced to four years in prison, but the last two years were suspended. He was finally freed in October 2015. On February 23 this year, Cheurfi was arrested again after it emerged he was trying to buy weapons ‘to kill police’. According to French media, Cheurfi said he had wanted to murder them as a form of ‘reprisal’ for what was happening in Syria.
In January, it is understood that he used Amazon to buy two knives, a GoPro video camera – which sick jihadists use to film their atrocities – and sinister masks from the 1996 US horror film Scream. But Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the items ‘were not sufficient
‘He drank and smoked cannabis’ ‘Imprisoned himself in the house’
to provide proof that he wanted to carry out a threat of assassination’. ‘For example, he said the masks were for a local carnival,’ he said.
‘At that stage, no link with the radical Islamist movement was apparent. Nothing justified further investigations by my office.’ He also showed no signs of radicalisation in jail, said Mr Molins.
Cheurfi was set free on March 6 due to lack of evidence. He had been able to travel to Algeria in January and February before his latest arrest despite having to report regularly to police.
Neighbours last night insisted he was not a terrorist but a recluse who drank alcohol, was not religious and was bitter that he had no wife or children.
Residents in Chelles, a suburb east of Paris, scoffed at the idea he was a jihadi, saying he had harboured a hatred for police after being repeatedly arrested for criminality. One neighbour, Hakim, 50, said: ‘Karim did not pray, he drank alcohol and watched jihadist propaganda. He was not a good Muslim, he was a lost soul. He had no friends, no girlfriend, he never went out. He stayed at home all day watching stuff on the internet.
‘Karim blamed the police for ruining his life. He fired a pistol at police and got sentenced to 15 years’ prison.
‘He hated the police, he said they had ruined his life. He was “anti- cop”. He would swear at officers in the street, call them b******s. He didn’t care.’
Another neighbour said: ‘Karim didn’t go to the mosque. He just stayed at home. You never saw him.’
Cheurfi’s Algerian-born mother had divorced his father and re-married. However, all three adults still shared the same property – with Cheurfi’s father Salat in an apartment to the front. An unnamed friend said: ‘He hated the police. For me, this had nothing to do with terrorism. He had psychological problems. When he came out (of jail) his mum said, “He’s out of prison, but he’s imprisoning himself in the house”.’
Another described how Cheurfi was bitter at not having a wife or children because ‘half of his life was eaten up by prison’. Friends speculated the gunman – who always wore western dress – was more motivated by a wish to die in a ‘suicide by cop’ shooting than to be a jihadi martyr. After the attack on Thursday officers found a sports bag containing a hunting rifle, ammunition, two kitchen knives, garden clippers and a Koran in the terrorist’s car along with his ID.
There were also notes and addresses of people within the French intelligence agency, it was said.
At his mother’s house in Chelles, police seized a computer, telephones, a rifle butt, prayer mats and an application for a hunting permit.
Prosecutors said three people ‘close to’ Cheurfi remained in custody.