Strasbourg shooting: French and German police hunt gunman
French and German police were continuing to hunt on Wednesday night for the gunman who killed three people and injured 13 others in an attack on Strasbourg’s Christmas market.
Suspect Chérif Chekatt is a hardened criminal who was on France’s national security list as a potential terror threat, the county’s authorities have admitted.
Witnesses said the man shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he shot into the crowds and slashed at passersby with a knife.
Two victims died at the scene and a third was said to have been left “brain dead”. Six people were critically injured.
The public prosecutor Rémy Heitz told journalists the attack was being investigated as terrorism-linked.
Some 720 members of the French security forces were today searching for Chekatt, a 29-year-old born in Strasbourg.
German federal police also confirmed they were searching for Chekatt and his brother in case they have crossed the border into Germany. At the German-French border in Kehl all cars leaving France are being controlled by the german police, and there are controls at three other border points.