Christmas market reopens for ‘honour of France’ after attack
The Christmas market in Strasbourg has reopened amid tight security a day after the gunman suspected of killing three people in a terror attack was shot dead by police.
The main suspect, Cherif Chekatt, was killed on Thursday night in the eastern French city after he opened fire on officers during a police operation in the Neudorf neighbourhood.
The site of Tuesday’s attack was close to Strasbourg’s famous Christmas market, which was closed during the manhunt for Chekatt.
Interior minister Christophe Castaner attended yesterday morning’s reopening and had a stroll in the market to meet shopkeepers.
Access to the market remained reduced, while extra police officers and military were deployed to the site in addition to private security guards.
Mr Castaner said authorities decided to reopen the Christmas market “for the honour of Strasbourg, for the honour of France”.
Investigators looking into the Strasbourg attack are trying to establish whether the main suspect was helped by accomplices while on the run, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said.
The prosecutor, who handles terror cases throughout France, said seven people were in police custody, including four family members of Chekatt.
“We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support,” Mr Heitz said.
The immediate aftermath of the shootout between French security forces and Chekatt was caught on camera from across the street.
Video footage showed armed officers at the scene and the body of the man slumped in a doorway.
More officers arrived at the scene soon after, followed by crime scene investigators who took photos of the body and the surroundings.
Investigators found a gun, a knife and ammunition on Chekatt’s body.
The Paris prosecutor’s office formally identified the man as 29-year-ol Chekatt, a Strasbourg-born man with a long history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Chekatt also had been on a watch list of potential extremists.
Mr Heitz said, on top of the three people who died in the Christmas market attack, “a fourth victim is brain dead”.
“Among the 12 other wounded, there is one person in a lifethreatening condition and four who remain hospitalised,” he said.
More than 700 officers were involved in the search for Chekatt. Chekatt was wellknown to police, but only as a common criminal. He had his first conviction at 13 and had 26 more by the time he died at age 29.