Paris Police Gunmen Ever Served 15 Years in Prison
Paris Police Gunmen Ever Served 15 Years in Prison
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PARIS - Police in France have searched a property believed to be the home of a known terror suspect who shot dead one police officer and seriously wounded two more in an attack two days before voting begins in an already tense presidential election.
The gunman stepped from a car and opened fire on a police van with an automatic rifle outside a Marks & Spencer store on the Champs Élysées in central Paris at about 9pm on Thursday.
The attacker, a 39 year old man widely named named as Karim Cheurfi, was known to French security services. Media reported he had served nearly 15 years in prison after being convicted of three attempted murders, two against police officers in 2001.
He was shot dead by police while trying to flee on foot. A statement from the Isis propaganda agency, Amaq, said the attack was carried out by an “Islamic State fighter”.
After a series of atrocities that have killed more than 230 people in France over the past two years, authorities had long feared bloodshed in the run-up to polling day and observers have speculated the attack could bring security to the forefront of voters’ concerns in Sunday’s first round.
The prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the government had reviewed its extensive election security measures and was “fully mobilised” in the wake of the attack.
“Barbarity and cowardice struck Paris last night, as they also recently struck elsewhere in Europe in Berlin, Stockholm, in London,” Caeneuve said after a meeting of its security council on Friday. The whole of Europe is being targeted, because it represents the values and ideals of peace,” he said.
He added more than 50,000 police and gendarmes and 7,000 soldiers would be on duty for Sunday’s first-round vote in the two-stage election, and nothing could be allowed to “hamper this democratic moment”. He appealed for national unity and for people “not to succumb to fear.”
A house in the eastern suburb of Chelles, believed to be Cheurfi’s family home, was being searched on Friday. Le Parisien newspaper said the address matched that of the owner of the car used in the attack. Police had found a pump-action shotgun and knives in the vehicle.
![Paris Police Gunmen Ever Served 15 Years in Prison]()
Police sources told French media Cheurfi was arrested in February on suspicion of plotting to kill police officers but released because of lack of evidence.
He was reportedly not, however, on France’s “Fiche-S”, the list of people suspected of being a threat to national security.
ISIS named the attacker as Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, or “the Belgian”, but it was not clear if the statement referred to Cheurfi. The Belgian interior minister, Jan Jambon, said he was “certainly not the guy who committed the crime yesterday”.
A Belgian national sought earlier by Belgian police and thought to have travelled to France on Thursday turned himself in to police in Antwerp, a French interior ministry spokesman, Henri Brandet, said on Friday.
A source close to the French investigation said the 35-year-old Belgian man, described as “very dangerous”, had been sought by his country’s police force as part of a separate investigation. Hours before the Paris assault, Belgian police reportedly found weapons, balaclavas and a ticket for a train trip to France departing on Thursday morning.
Belgian prosecutors said the man handed himself in “after he saw himself appear on social media as terror suspect No 1”, but that he had nothing to do with the attack. The Belgian justice minister, Koen Geens, said on Friday the government had “no information at this moment about Belgian links”.
In France, three people known to Cheurfi were arrested during overnight raids in the eastern suburbs of Paris and were being questioned by anti-terror police, judicial sources said.
The outgoing president, François Hollande, paid tribute to the police on Thursday night and pledged “absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process”, taking place under a national state of emergency which has been in place since 2015.
The interior minister, Matthias Fekl, said: “The sense of duty of our policemen tonight averted a massacre, they prevented a bloodbath on the Champs Élysées.” A female foreign tourist was also slightly wounded in the attack.
The gunman stepped from a car and opened fire on a police van with an automatic rifle outside a Marks & Spencer store on the Champs Élysées in central Paris at about 9pm on Thursday.
The attacker, a 39 year old man widely named named as Karim Cheurfi, was known to French security services. Media reported he had served nearly 15 years in prison after being convicted of three attempted murders, two against police officers in 2001.
He was shot dead by police while trying to flee on foot. A statement from the Isis propaganda agency, Amaq, said the attack was carried out by an “Islamic State fighter”.
After a series of atrocities that have killed more than 230 people in France over the past two years, authorities had long feared bloodshed in the run-up to polling day and observers have speculated the attack could bring security to the forefront of voters’ concerns in Sunday’s first round.
The prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the government had reviewed its extensive election security measures and was “fully mobilised” in the wake of the attack.
“Barbarity and cowardice struck Paris last night, as they also recently struck elsewhere in Europe in Berlin, Stockholm, in London,” Caeneuve said after a meeting of its security council on Friday. The whole of Europe is being targeted, because it represents the values and ideals of peace,” he said.
He added more than 50,000 police and gendarmes and 7,000 soldiers would be on duty for Sunday’s first-round vote in the two-stage election, and nothing could be allowed to “hamper this democratic moment”. He appealed for national unity and for people “not to succumb to fear.”
A house in the eastern suburb of Chelles, believed to be Cheurfi’s family home, was being searched on Friday. Le Parisien newspaper said the address matched that of the owner of the car used in the attack. Police had found a pump-action shotgun and knives in the vehicle.
Police sources told French media Cheurfi was arrested in February on suspicion of plotting to kill police officers but released because of lack of evidence.
He was reportedly not, however, on France’s “Fiche-S”, the list of people suspected of being a threat to national security.
ISIS named the attacker as Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, or “the Belgian”, but it was not clear if the statement referred to Cheurfi. The Belgian interior minister, Jan Jambon, said he was “certainly not the guy who committed the crime yesterday”.
A Belgian national sought earlier by Belgian police and thought to have travelled to France on Thursday turned himself in to police in Antwerp, a French interior ministry spokesman, Henri Brandet, said on Friday.
A source close to the French investigation said the 35-year-old Belgian man, described as “very dangerous”, had been sought by his country’s police force as part of a separate investigation. Hours before the Paris assault, Belgian police reportedly found weapons, balaclavas and a ticket for a train trip to France departing on Thursday morning.
Belgian prosecutors said the man handed himself in “after he saw himself appear on social media as terror suspect No 1”, but that he had nothing to do with the attack. The Belgian justice minister, Koen Geens, said on Friday the government had “no information at this moment about Belgian links”.
In France, three people known to Cheurfi were arrested during overnight raids in the eastern suburbs of Paris and were being questioned by anti-terror police, judicial sources said.
The outgoing president, François Hollande, paid tribute to the police on Thursday night and pledged “absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process”, taking place under a national state of emergency which has been in place since 2015.
The interior minister, Matthias Fekl, said: “The sense of duty of our policemen tonight averted a massacre, they prevented a bloodbath on the Champs Élysées.” A female foreign tourist was also slightly wounded in the attack.
(rnz)
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