{"id":6435,"date":"2018-12-14T12:32:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T08:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=6435"},"modified":"2018-12-14T12:32:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T08:32:02","slug":"strasbourg-christmas-market-gunman-shot-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/12\/14\/strasbourg-christmas-market-gunman-shot-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Strasbourg Christmas market gunman shot dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man suspected of opening fire at a Christmas market has been shot dead, the French interior minister has said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Cherif Chekatt killed three people and injured 13 at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Minister of the interior Christophe Castaner said the the 29-year-old was killed in the Neudorf-Meinau area of the city after a police operation was launched at about 9pm on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Three police officers had stumbled across a man they had believed was Chekatt and when they went to arrest him he turned to fire on them, Mr Castaner said.<\/p>\n

The officers then shot and killed him.<\/p>\n

A French official was earlier quoted by the Associated Press as saying the suspect had been armed with a pistol and a knife.<\/p>\n

Witnesses reported “at least three” gunshots were heard in the district and a police helicopter was seen hovering overhead.<\/p>\n

The area had been cordoned off by police earlier in the day by members of France’s elite RAID force as part of a search by more than 700 police officers.<\/p>\n

\"French<\/p>\n

Asked if police had been told to capture the killer\u00a0dead or alive<\/strong>, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux earlier told France’s CNews: “It doesn’t matter. The best thing would be to find him as quickly as possible.”<\/p>\n

Chekatt had 27 convictions in France, Germany and Switzerland, and is believed to have been radicalised while in jail.<\/p>\n

He was also one of 25,000 people on the “S file” – reserved for people suspected of extremism – and had been monitored since 2015.<\/p>\n

Five people have already been arrested as part of the manhunt, including Chekatt’s parents and two of his brothers. The latest person was described as a member of his “entourage”.<\/p>\n

Three people were killed in the market attack, including a Thai tourist named by the embassy in Paris as Anupong Suebsamarn, 45.<\/p>\n

The other victims were not named but French media said one is a 52-year-old Strasbourg man who was killed while leaving a restaurant.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Remy Heitz confirmed on Wednesday that one victim had been left brain dead.<\/p>\n

Three of the injured have left hospital and three others are fighting for their lives, French media said on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

A Strasbourg mosque posted on Facebook earlier to say one of its members was in a coma after being hit in the head.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Skynews<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The man suspected of opening fire at a Christmas market has been shot dead, the French interior minister has said. Cherif Chekatt killed three people and injured 13 at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday. Minister of the interior Christophe Castaner said the the 29-year-old was killed in the Neudorf-Meinau …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6437,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435\/revisions\/6437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}