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Europe

Strasbourg attack: Trio charged with supplying weapon

2019-02-03

[DW] Three men have been charged in connection with last year's deadly Christmas market attack in Strasbourg. Police say the suspects supplied the gunman with the pistol he used to kill five people in the rampage. French authorities have charged three people with terrorist conspiracy and weapons offenses over their role in the attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market in December. The men ‐ aged 32, 34 and 78 ‐ were indicted by an examining magistrate in Gay Paree and remanded in jug pending trial, according to a judicial source. All three men are members of the same family, according to French officials. Two other members of the family were also detained with the trio but released soon after. Cherif Chekatt killed five people and maimed 11 others when he opened fire on the open-air market in the northeastern French city on December 11. The 29-year-old, a known petty criminal who was also on an myrmidon watch list, was rubbed out by police after a two-day manhunt. Following the attack, Sherlocks found a video in which Chekatt pledged allegiance to "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... " (IS). SUSPECTED ACCOMPLICES Police allege the three men held in detention supplied the attacker with the 8mm revolver used in the shooting. The three were tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! on Tuesday in eastern La Belle France before being transferred to the counterterrorism bureau in Gay Paree. Two other suspects seized at the same time were released without charge on Wednesday.

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Europe

Strasbourg market gunman pledged allegiance to IS

2018-12-23

[APNEWS] A French judicial official says the alleged gunman who shot and killed five people in a Christmas market attack this month in Strasbourg had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group. The judicial official, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said Sherlocks have found a video stored on a USB key in which Cherif Chekatt had claimed allegiance to the bad boy group. The video was at Chekatt’s home. Chekatt, 29, died in a shootout with police two days after his Dec. 11 attack at Strasbourg’s popular Christmas market. Shortly after his death, the Islamic State group’s Amaq news agency claimed he was a "soldier" of the group. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner had rejected the claim as "totally opportunistic."

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Europe

Fifth victim of Strasbourg Christmas market attack dies

2018-12-22

[Irish Times] A fifth person has died of their injuries after Tuesday’s Christmas market attack in Strasbourg, French prosecutors have confirmed. An official from the Paris prosecutor’s office said the victim was a Polish national, but gave no other details. An Italian journalist, a Thai tourist, an Afghan mechanic and a French national were also killed in the shooting. The suspected attacker, Cherif Chekatt, was killed by police on Thursday night following a two-day manhunt for the 29-year-old by 700 French security forces. Link provides lengthy terrorist attack compendium Update from the Irish Times at 5:30 p.m.ET: Strasbourg attack suspect ‘pledged allegiance to Islamic State’: French investigators find video of Cherif Chekatt declaring support for Isis

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Europe

Suspected terrorist surveillance detected at Stuttgart airport

2018-12-21

[BBC] Germany's biggest airports are on alert after four suspected terrorists were spotted staking out Stuttgart airport, reports say. Police are said to be hunting for a son and father from North Rhine-Westphalia and two others seen taking photos of the airport's terminal and grounds. Details of the suspects were passed to German police by Morocco's secret service, reports say. This comes a week after a terror attack across the border in France. Three people were killed by Cherif Chekatt near a Christmas Market in Strasbourg, which is some 150km (93 miles) from Stuttgart. Police told public broadcaster ARD that security forces were on alert at German airports, while Bild website said warnings had been extended to all 14 major hubs. 'SPYING ATTEMPTS' DETECTED Since the Strasbourg attack, suspicious activity had been spotted at both Stuttgart Airport and at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, public broadcaster SWR reported. The father and son were captured on surveillance cameras taking photos around the airport, but had disappeared by the time police arrived. The Stuttgart airport suspects' names as well as details of their communications were reportedly given to police by intelligence officials in Morocco. German police would not confirm the reports, with spokesman Roman Strohmayer saying only "we have information that for the moment cannot yet be judged conclusively." But, he told Bild website: "We have detected spying attempts at Stuttgart Airport and have massively tightened our security measures at the airport in cooperation with the state police. " Germany was targeted just before Christmas in 2016, when Tunisian jihadist Anis Amri ploughed a lorry into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and leaving dozens more wounded.

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Europe

The Strasbourg shooter and the Polish musician who tried to stop him

2018-12-19

[DW] Five people died in the Strasbourg attack. Among them was a Polish musician who had spoken out in favor of a Europe ...also known as Moslem Lebensraum... without borders. Many people view him as a hero, others have criticized his liberal views on migration. It happened on December 11, in the middle of the Christmas season in downtown Strasbourg. The gunman opened fire and, according to French Sherlocks, yelled out "holy shit! Allahu akbar" ("God is great" in Arabic). Polish musician, journalist and European Parliament tour guide Barto Pedro Orent-Niedzielski stood together with several friends, among them Italian journalist Antonio Megalizzi, in front of the music club Les Savons d'Helene, near the Christmas market. MAJOR BLOODBATH PREVENTED A sheepdog, not a sheep. According to Polish media, citing witness accounts, the two men stepped into the way of the armed shooter and blocked the door to the club. This act of heroism may have prevented a much greater bloodbath. Both of the men were maimed in the attack and died a few days later. "Barto Pedro Orent-Niedzielski, a French-Polish journalist who was injured in Strasbourg together with Antonio Megalizzi, is no longer alive. Rest in peace. We are fighting terrorism until victory!" wrote Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament, on Twitter when he learned of Orent-Niedzielski's death. "Our brother Barto Pedro Orent-Niedzielski has just left us. I thank you for the love and strength you gave him," wrote Jakub Niedzielski, brother of the late musician, on Facebook. APPRECIATION IN THE HOMELAND Polish President Andrzej Duda, a former MEP who remembered Orent-Niedzielski from his time in the European Parliament, also expressed his shock on Twitter: "He was fatally injured when he saved the lives of the other people." The country's mrime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has promised the victim's family a life-long state pension. "The Pole has paid with his life for the lives of other people," he said. Orent-Niedzielski, originally from Katowice in the south of Poland, had lived in Strasbourg for 20 years. He emigrated from Poland with his mother at the age of 16, but in recent years he regularly visited his home town. THE CONVINCED EUROPEAN His friends, who called him Bartek, spoke of his great enthusiasm for the idea of an open Europe. He was also committed to supporting the LGBT movement, Jewish culture and solidarity with the Paleostinian people. Orent-Niedzielski's plan was to open a linguistic cafe in Strasbourg where people of different languages and cultures could meet. "Always full of ideas, an energy volcano, always with a smile on his face," recalls Dariusz Zalega from Katowice. "When we talked about the terrorist attack in Gay Paree in 2015, he didn't look for the culprits where fanatics, racists and know-it-alls were looking for them. He believed responsibility laid with those who cause wars, sell arms and spread hatred. His message was: 'Everyone is my brother.'" A little over a year before his death, in July 2017, Orent-Niedzielski wrote enthusiastically on Facebook about his new job as a tour guide at the European Parliament. While working for Europhonica, a European Parliament-focused radio station, he tried to convince his listeners of the advantages of a multicultural continent. CRITICISM OF PRO-EUROPEAN ATTITUDE Lorenzo Consoli, who works in Strasbourg as a correspondent for the Italian news agency Aksanews, also spoke about Orent-Niedzielski and his Italian colleague Antonio Megalizza in a journalist briefing at the European Parliament. The two had had the ability "to talk for hours on end about all sorts of European issues. Bartek wanted to bring every injustice to light and Antonio was always looking for concrete solutions to problems," Consoli said. But the two have also been criticized posthumously for their pro-European attitude, Consoli told DW. "There are some bad comments claiming that such terrorist attacks would not have taken place if Europe had not kept its doors so open," he said. The 29-year-old perpetrator of the attack, Cherif Chekatt, was born in Strasbourg. He was rubbed out by police after a two-day, large-scale manhunt.

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Europe

Police to charge Strasbourg gunman's 'accomplice'

2018-12-18

[PULSE.NG] French anti-terrorist officials said Monday they would shortly file charges against a man placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in connection with the mass shooting at a Christmas market in Strasbourg last week. The 37-year-old, who was not immediately identified, was detained on Thursday. He is suspected of helping to provide the pistol used by Cherif Chekatt, a career criminal who rubbed out five people and maimed 11 at the market last Tuesday night, judicial sources said. Chekatt, who was on a list of possible Death Eater security risks, was shot and killed by police after a two-day manhunt in the city. The alleged associate will be brought before a judge in Gay Paree on Monday, the prosecutors' office in the capital said. Six other people detained in the wake of Tuesday's attack, including Chekatt's parents and two of his brothers, have been released without charge. The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group claimed Chekatt was one of their "fighters", but this was dismissed by French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. Chekatt's father, Abdelkrim, told La Belle France 2 television Saturday night that his son believed the Islamic State "fought for a good cause". "I always told him they were criminals," his father added. Had his son hinted he intended to kill people, "I would have told police about him, so that he wouldn't have killed anyone, and wouldn't have gotten himself killed," he said. Four of the five people killed in Tuesday's attack were foreigners or born abroad. One was a 45-year-old Thai tourist, and another a 45-year-old Franco-Afghan garage owner who fled his country 20 years ago. A 28-year-old Italian journalist, in town to cover the European parliament, was also shot and killed, as was a 36-year-old former Pole who had lived in Strasbourg for the past 20 years. The dead also included a 61-year-old Frenchie who had just retired and was shot in the head as he stepped out of a restaurant.

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Europe

Father of Strasbourg shooter says son supported Islamic State

2018-12-16

[IsraelTimes] Abdelkrim Chekatt said he tried to convince Cherif Chekatt to quit backing terror group, went to police after attack fearing he was involved. The man described as the father of the 29-year-old suspect in this week’s deadly Christmas market attack in Strasbourg says his son subscribed to the beliefs of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group. The interview with Abdelkrim Chekatt by the state-run La Belle France 2 television channel was shown Saturday night, two days after the son was killed in a confrontation with three coppers in his childhood neighborhood in Strasbourg following a massive manhunt. Four people died in the Tuesday night attack. A dozen others were maimed. The Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament, is the largest in La Belle France. It reopened on Friday after being closed during the search for the suspect. Chekatt said he had seen his son, Cherif Chekatt, three days before the attack but couldn’t contact him while he was on the run. He acknowledged that his son backed the IS group. "He’d say, for example, that ISIS, fights for the just cause and all that," the red-bearded father said, using the common term in La Belle France and elsewhere for the Islamic State group. The interview, initially outdoors with the father, continued briefly inside with Cheriff Chekatt’s mother, Rouadja Rouag, who expressed shock and sorrow for the deaths. La Belle France 2 said the couple had been divorced for a long time. Abdelkrim Chekatt, a French-Algerian, said he’d tried in the past to dissuade his son from backing the Islamic State, saying, "You don’t see the atrocities they commit." The son would reply that "it’s not them," the father said. The father and mother and two siblings of the suspected killer were among seven people held for questioning. French media reported that the family members were released. The three others, still in jug, are unrelated but close to Chekatt. The father said he went to police of his own accord and on a suspicion the night of the son’s rampage with a handgun and a knife. He said he told police that "if ever you locate Cherif, tell me. I’ll go to him and try to reason with him to give up." He also said that if his son had told him about a project to kill "I would have denounced him, and he wouldn’t have killed or been killed."

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Europe

Is Strasbourg really a hotbed for violent Islamist extremists?

2018-12-16

[TheLocal.fr] After the deadly Christmas market terrorist attack, there have been claims that the eastern city of Strasbourg and the area around it houses more Islamist Death Eaters than elsewhere in La Belle France. But is this really true? Since the attacks, claims that the city and the Bas-Rhin department has more individuals known as 'fiche S' - essentially a French watchlist of people who represent a potential threat to national security, often just referred to as a terror watchlist - than the national average have been all over the French media. The claims seem to come from the mayor of the city Roland Ries. "It's true that we have statistically more 'fichés S' here in Strasbourg and in the Bas-Rhin department than the national average", the mayor of Strasbourg Roland Ries told La Belle France Inter on Friday when discussing why Strasbourg was the target of the latest terror attack to hit La Belle France. A figure quoted several times by the city's mayor after the attack and in the media spoke of 10% of La Belle France's 'fiche S' criminals being found in Strasbourg and the Bas-Rhin department. Another reason why there has been a focus on Islamist Death Eaters around the eastern region is that individuals from the Bas-Rhin department have made headlines in recent years for either travelling in groups to Syria to fight Jihad or playing a role in previous terror attacks in the country such as the attack on the Bataclan and this year's knife attack in the Opera area of Gay Paree. The claims were used to suggest the city that borders Germany and its surrounding area was a breeding ground for potential jihadists. But a closer look at statistics appears to show this isn't quite the case. There are 26,000 individuals on the 'Fiche S' list in La Belle France. Those included the 29-year-old gunman Cherif Chekatt who fired the crowd in the Strasbourg Christmas market and then hid in the city before being rubbed out by police in the Neudorf district on Thursday. Many others who have carried out terror attacks in La Belle France in recent years have also been on the Fiche S list. Some of the individuals listed are radicalised like Chekatt was, but not all. The list also includes hooligans, anarchists and other people deemed to be a danger to national security. French authorities don't release the figures for the number of 'fiche S' criminals for specific parts of La Belle France, so it is impossible to know whether or not there are more in the Bas-Rhin. However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... since 2015, radicalised individuals have also been added to another watchlist called FSPRT, which has roughly 18,000 people on it. Chekatt was down on both lists. This is probably where the confusion began. The Bas-Rhin counts 224 people on the FSPRT watchlist, 110 of whom live in Strasbourg. While those figures are higher than the greater region of the Grand Est that encompasses Strasbourg and the Bas-Rhin, they are in fact lower than the national average. "If you compare those figures nationally, they are 15.6 for 100 000 inhabitants and 13.2 for the inhabitants of the Bas-Rhin," Le Gay Pareeien reported. The highest concentration of people on those lists is mostly found in the departments containing La Belle France's biggest cities. So it seems that Strasbourg and the area around it doesn't house more dangerous or radicalised Islamist Death Eaters than other parts of La Belle France, despite what the city's mayor has claimed.

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Europe

ISIS claim of Strasbourg attack ‘completely opportunistic’, says French minister

2018-12-15

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] La Belle France’s interior minister dismissed on Friday a claim by ISIS bad boy group that the gunman who attacked a Christmas market in Strasbourg was one of its "soldiers", calling the assertion "completely opportunistic". "The completely opportunistic claim by ISIS doesn’t change anything," Christophe Castaner said as he visited the newly reopened market, using an Arabic acronym for the ISIS. Minister Castaner added: "We’re dealing with a man who was consumed by evil." The Daily Mail adds: French President Emmanuel Macron visited the Strasbourg Christmas market this evening to pay his respects to the victims of a jihadist gunman who was killed in a shoot-out with police last night. The president went to the market and laid a single white rose at a nearby monument to the terrorist outrage and stood silently for over two minutes in tribute after the official re-opening of the market at 11:00am this morning. As he looked solemn and closed his eyes in reflection, the crowd spontaneously began singling La Marseillaise - the French national anthem - in memory of the fallen victims. Cherif Chekatt’s victims were a Thai tourist, on holiday in Strasbourg with his wife, an Afghan who sought refuge in La Belle France some 20 years ago, a 28-year-old Italian journalist in town to cover the European parliament, and a local Frenchie who had just retired. A fifth victim was declared brain-dead. Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte tweeted his 'deep sorrow' at the death of Antonio Megalizzi, who became the fourth victim when he passed away in hospital. Following the attack the threat level was raised to its highest, but today the 'Vigipirate plan' - La Belle France's national security alert system - was reduced to the level second level of 'Risk Attack', the French government said. As the Christmas market reopened armed police and soldiers patrolled the area. Gay Paree prosecutor Remy Heitz told a news conference on Friday that seven people are in police custody, including four of his family members. Police on Wednesday jugged Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! his parents, two brothers and a friend in connection with the attack. On Friday, they arrested his third brother in Algeria to see if he was involved. 'We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support,' Heitz said. After his escape, Chekatt hid out in a warehouse a few hundred yards from his parents' house where he grew up in the northeastern French city. He was tracked down at 9pm on Thursday when police in a patrol car spotted him on a street in a district where he was last seen after Tuesday night's attack. Around 800 people had called in tips to a hotline after the authorities released his name and photo Wednesday night, including two which Heitz called 'decisive' in finding Chekatt. The information allowed police to home in on an area in the Neudorf neighbourhood, where he tried to escape into a building after being spotted by a patrol. Unable to get in the door, he turned and shot at the three officers with a handgun when they tried to approach. Two returned fire and killed him, Heitz said at a presser in Strasbourg. Defence Minister Florence Parly rejected criticism that Chekatt's presence on the country's so-called 'S file' of forces of Evil should have prompted a more proactive reaction from the authorities. 'You can't... arrest someone just because you think he might do something,' Parly told Radio Classique on Friday.

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Europe

Day 4: Strasbourg gunman shot dead by French police

2018-12-14

Day 3 can be seen here. [Al Jazeera] The suspected gunman, who killed three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg on Tuesday, has been killed, police sources have said. Cherif Chekatt was killed in the Neudorf area of the city in northeast La Belle France after a police operation was launched around 20:00 GMT on Thursday, sources said. A French police official said security forces, including the elite Raid squad, acted following reports that the 29-year-old suspect was hiding in a building in the neighbourhood. Authorities said a taxi driver dropped Chekatt off in the Neudorf neighborhood of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening after the shooting, which also maimed 13 people. Chekatt had a long criminal record and was flagged for extremism, government spokesperson Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. Prosecutors had opened a terror investigation into the attack. Police distributed a photo of Chekatt, with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene." The corpse count rose to three on Thursday with the death of a victim who was declared brain-dead earlier. Five of those maimed were at death's door, authorities said. The Local - France adds: The man who killed three people and left several others seriously injured when he attacked members of the public in the centre of Strasbourg on Tuesday night, is believed to have been hiding out in a factory. Police had been carrying out operations in Neudorf throughout the day with residents moved out of the area as apartments were searched. Just before reports emerged that police had tracked down the suspect La Belle France's Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced that the city's famed Christmas market would reopen again on Friday. Security around the market would be boosted with the number of access points reduced and shoppers subject to more checks. "We can't give in to fear because life, the festivities, our culture, the joy, of which this Christmas market is a symbol, must win through," said Castaner. A fifth person was detained by police for questioning on Thursday, in addition to the suspect's parents and two brothers who have been in jug since Wednesday. And from the Daily Mail: Just over an hour after Chekatt was rubbed out, ISIS claimed the terrorist as a 'soldier' of ISIS, according to the propaganda new agency of the jihadist organization, Amaq. In an update shared via social media, the IS Amaq news agency said: 'Amaq identifies Strasbourg gunman as an IS "'soldier".' The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's self-styled news agency said that Chekatt was 'an Islamic State soldier' who 'carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of coalition countries' fighting the terrorist group's Lions of Islam in Syria and Iraq. More than 720 French security forces had been hunting for the 29-year-old since the bloodshed on Tuesday night. A police source said he was shot and killed by police in the Plaine des Bouchers area, near the Neudorf area of the city. The Gay Paree prosecutor's office said Chekatt's parents and two brothers were being held in jug, while two of his sisters in Gay Paree were also questioned today. Police also raided the home of Chekatt's sister in Gay Paree, although they did not arrest her, according to Le Point. Officers apparently became suspicious over the sister's links to a doctor who may have helped treat Chekatt after he was shot in the arm. The fifth person detained is reported to be a 39-year-old friend of the killer who once shared a prison with him. Chekatt is said to have stayed with the friend in Lingolsheim on the night before the attack. As officers searched for the killer it emerged that they had found jihadist literature at his apartment, as well as a grenade, a loaded rifle and four knives. On Thursday Le Gay Pareeien also revealed that, during a prison stay in 2008, Chekatt hung a picture of 9/11 criminal mastermind the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse... on his wall. JEWISH GRAVES FOUND DESECRATED HOURS BEFORE ISLAMIST RAMPAGE Jewish gravestones in a cemetery near Strasbourg were discovered daubed with antisemitic graffiti hours before an Islamic krazed killer shot up a Christmas market in the French city. The graves were painted with Nazis swastikas and the numbers 88 and 14, which are used by white supremacists to reference the phrase 'heil Hitler' and a 14-word statement he once issued from prison which reads: 'We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.' Other graffiti read 'CRIF = ZOG', referencing the French organization which represents Jewish communities - CRIF - which was compared to a 'Zionist occupation government' or 'ZOG'. The graves are located in Herrlisheim, a commune around 12 miles to the north of Strasbourg. This is the fourth time in two months that graffiti featuring far-right and antisemitic symbols has appeared in the Alsace region, according to the Jerusalem Post.

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