‘Terror’ charges for Strasbourg suspect
MAN ACCUSED OF GUN SUPPLY
A MAN suspected of supplying the gun used in the Christmas market shooting that killed five people in Strasbourg has been handed preliminary terror charges, according to a French judicial official.
The official said the man appeared before a judge and was charged with criminal association with terrorists, as well as possessing and supplying arms in connection with a terrorist enterprise.
The man is suspected of furnishing the weapon that alleged gunman Cherif Chekatt used in the December 11 attack, the judicial official said. He was remanded into custody.
Chekatt, 29, died in a shootout with police in Strasbourg last week. Two other people were arrested and detained on Monday as part of the terror investigation the Paris prosecutor’s office is conducting into the attack.
They were suspected of “playing a role in supplying the firearm”, said the official.
Their arrests bring the number of suspects in custody since the attack to three. Chekatt’s parents and two of his brothers were questioned last week and released.
The death toll from the attack rose to five on Sunday after a Polish man died of his wounds in a Strasbourg hospital.
Barto Orent-niedzielski, 36, worked at the European Parliament as a journalist. The other casualties included a tourist from Thailand and an Italian journalist.