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Day 3: Strasbourg Terror Suspect Yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ During Attack, Has 27 Prior Criminal Convictions
Day 2 report can be seen here.
[Breitbart] Strasbourg terror suspect Cherif C. is still on the run from police but new information has revealed that he has 27 prior criminal convictions and yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the attack which led to the death of two people, the brain death of another, and several injuries.

The new information was revealed Wednesday at a press conference by France’s anti-terror prosecutor Rémy Heitz who said that witnesses had observed the suspect yelling “Allahu Akbar” as he fired upon the crowd at the Strasbourg Christmas market on Tuesday evening, France24 reports.

According to French broadcaster BFMTV, the 29-year-old suspect, who was born in Strasbourg, has had a total of 27 prior criminal convictions including convictions for violent robbery, the earliest occurring when the suspect was only 10 years old.

Investigators have also said that the crimes did not occur in just France, noting he had also committed crimes in both Germany and Switzerland as well.

Hours before the attack, the suspect’s house had been raided by police who found a hand grenade, a shotgun, and other weapons. Investigators now say that the 29-year-old had been a suspect in a prior attempted murder and that is what sparked the initial raid.

On Wednesday police arrested four men believed to be connected to Cherif C. and revealed that the terror suspect had used a taxi to flee the scene and had even bragged to the taxi driver that he had killed at least ten people.

Wikipedia has opened a page on Chérif Chekatt‘s ten-minute attack here.
The Telegraph adds:
German authorities were on alert for the fugitive along the Rhine river bordering France and Germany, said a spokesman from the Baden-Wuerttemberg region.

Police had tried to detain Cherif on Tuesday morning in connection with an attempted murder inquiry, but he was not at home.

They found a grenade, a rifle and four knives during a search on Tuesday morning of the suspect’s house. Four members of his entourage were being detained for questioning.

These reportedly include his parents and two brothers, one of him, according to Le Parisien, is believed to be a follower of Salafism, an ultra-conservative form of Islam.

He was shot in the arm during an exchange of fire with French soldiers in the city centre and then forced a taxi driver to take him to another part of the city.

Later, he crossed four policemen. They riposted when he opened fire but he managed to flee once again.

At the drab housing estate where he lived in Hohberg on the outskirts of Strasbourg, neighbours were adamant Chekatt was no Islamist but a cornered criminal who had “lost his marbles”.

“For us, he wasn’t radicalised, he was a thug,” a resident called Zak, 22, told the Telegraph.

“He lost the plot because he had botched an armed robbery beforehand. He knew the police were after him. He had a criminal history and knew he was looking at 10 years or so he lost it.”
From the Daily Mail:
Chekatt, a French national from an Algerian background, was originally due to be arrested in connection with an attempted murder in in Eckbolsheim, in north eastern France, in August.

Before the shooting took place, police had gone to his home earlier to arrest him over this suspected crime, but found him missing.

The four people previously reported as being held for questioning was revealed on Wednesday afternoon to be Chekatt's mother, father and two brothers.
From the Guardian, background:
French investigators call them the “gangster-jihadists” – young men, often from poor immigrant backgrounds, who start with petty crime, drug dealing and robbery and graduate to terrorism.

Chekatt was born in Strasbourg in February 1989, into a family with Moroccan roots, and appears to have fallen first into petty crime then gangster circles.

Like many youths growing up on outer-city housing projects in France, home to many of the country’s north African immigrant population, where poverty and unemployment are rife, Chekatt left school early and had a series of low-paid jobs.

Five of his alleged accomplices
...for the previous armed robbery/attempted murder...
were picked up in raids on Tuesday morning, but when police turned up at his apartment in a block at the Les Poteries district of west Strasbourg, Chekatt was not there. Inside, they found a stun grenade, a long rifle with ammunition and four knives, including two hunting knives.

French officials have suggested the prospect of another prison sentence could have sparked the Christmas market attack a few hours later.
Another Guardian article adds:
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.
Posted by: Besoeker 2018-12-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=529579