Strasbourg manhunt: France raises terror alert level as police search for gunman who killed two at Christmas market
Authorities launch terror investigation as 350 officers hunt for suspect
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A large-scale manhunt has been launched in France for a suspected extremist gunman who shot at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, killing two people and injuring at least 12.
Authorities have launched a terror investigation, with Interior Minister Christophe Castaner saying 350 officers are hunting for the man, who was already known to the country’s intelligence services as a potential security risk.
The French government raised its security alert system Vigipirate to its highest level, “Emergency Attack”, triggering stricter border controls and reinforced security at all Christmas markets to avoid the risk of copycat attacks.
The suspected attacker has been named by police as Chérif Chekatt, a 29-year-old born in Strasbourg who has served time in prison in France and Germany for common law offences, and was reportedly known to be part of radicalised networks in Strasbourg and considered a “repeat offender” and a “delinquent”.
French police officers patrol next to Notre-Dame cathedral of Strasbourg as police continue to search for the suspect (AP/Jean Francois Badias)
The suspected Strasbourg gunman was convicted of robbery in Germany in 2016 and sentenced to two years and three months in prison for breaking into a dental practice and a pharmacy.
The verdict from a district court in Singen, obtained by The Associated Press, says he was also sentenced to prison in France in 2008 and in Basel, Switzerland in 2013 for various robberies.
According to the verdict, the suspected attacker grew up with six siblings in Strasbourg, worked for local authorities after leaving school and had been unemployed since 2011.
He said he had been traveling a lot and had already spent four years in prison. The German robberies took place in Mainz, near Frankfurt, in 2012 and in Engen, near the Swiss border, in 2016.
News agency dpa reported that he was deported to France in 2017.
Germany has no information indicating the man suspected of an attack on a Christmas market in Strasbourg has an Islamist background, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman has said.
"From the German viewpoint, we have no information about the person concerned that points to an Islamist background," the spokeswoman told a regular government news conference.
Spectators who were trapped at the SIG Strasbourg basketball game in the aftermath of the shooting on Tuesday began singing the French national anthem "to pay homage to the victims of the shootings".
French and German agents are checking vehicles and trams crossing the Europa Bridge on the Rhine river, along which the Franco-German frontier runs, police said, backing up traffic in both directions.
Hundreds of French troops and police are taking part in the manhunt for the gunman.
No one has yet claimed responsibility, but the US-based Site intelligence group, which monitors jihadist websites, said Isis supporters were celebrating.
The man suspected of carrying out a fatal shooting in Strasbourg on Tuesday night cried out "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great) during the attack, said Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz.
"Considering the target, his way of operating, his profile and the testimonies of those who heard him yell 'Allahu Akbar', the anti-terrorist police has been called into action," Mr Heitz told reporters on Wednesday.
The prosecutor said the suspected gunman was shot in the arm during an exchange of fire with French soldiers in the city center and then took a taxi to another part of the city during the rampage on Tuesday night.
He said the man was armed with a handgun and a knife, using them to attack his victims.
He also said police found a grenade, a rifle and four knives during a search Tuesday morning of the 29-year-old's house. They had wanted to take him into custody as in an investigation for suspected murder.
Previously, French authorities had said the gunman killed three people. But Heitz said two people were confirmed dead while the third was brain dead.
Neighbors of the man suspected of attacking Strasbourg's Christmas market have described him as destabilized by his time in prison, according to the Associated Press.
"You can just tell," one of the young men from the apartment block where suspected gunman Cherif Chekatt lived told the agency.
A neighbor, who also asked not to be named, said he was rarely home. She said she last saw him on Monday from her window, which looks out on a common hallway, and he was with another man.
The lock of the door at the suspect's apartment is broken and police were guarding the building where the gunman was believed to have lived, in an outer neighborhood of Strasbourg.
French president Emmanuel Macron is holding an emergency security meeting at the presidential palace in Paris following the attack in the eastern city of Strasbourg, which killed at least two and injured about a dozen others.
The defense council is taking place in the presence of top military officials and government members, including the prime minister, interior, defense and foreign affairs ministers.
They will discuss the progress of the investigation and other security measures as the government raised the alert level nationwide and sent police reinforcements to Strasbourg in a manhunt for the suspect.
Interior minister Christophe Castaner was back in Paris on Wednesday after travelling to Strasbourg overnight to supervise police operations.
The German government has said it has stepped up controls on the country's border with France following Tuesday night's attack in Strasbourg, but sees no change to the threat level in Germany.
Interior Ministry spokeswoman Eleonore Petermann said there was no reason to stay away from Christmas markets in Germany. A Christmas market in Berlin was targeted in a deadly attack two years ago.
Ms Petermann and Germany's justice ministry said German authorities had no information on links between the suspected attacker, who previously spent prison time in Germany for robbery, and Islamic extremists.
The suspect, who killed at least two and injured about a dozen others Tuesday, was convicted in Germany in 2016 and reportedly deported to France in 2017. Ms Petermann said, however, that his freedom of movement within the European Union had been removed.
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