Strasbourg gunman shot dead by French police

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Europe

French police on Thursday shot dead a gunman who had been on the run since killing three people at Strasbourg's popular Christmas market.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Thursday that three police officers had stumbled across a man they believed to be Cherif Chekatt in the street and went to arrest him. He turned to fire on the police officers, who shot and killed him in the Neudorf area.

Hundreds of police and anti-terror forces participated in a hunt for a gunman who shot dead several people and wounded a dozen in Strasbourg, December 13, 2018. /VCG Photo

More than 700 French security forces had been hunting for the 29-year-old Strasbourg native, since the bloodshed on Tuesday night.

Police in several European countries had also joined the manhunt earlier.

Authorities published Chekatt's picture late Wednesday in a bid to track the career criminal who has at least 27 convictions in four European countries.

French police release a picture of Cherif Chekatt suspected of being the gunman involved in the Strasbourg shooting, December 12, 2018. /VCG Photo

An online statement from the ISIL group's Amaq news agency on Thursday said the gunman was one of its soldiers who "carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of coalition countries" fighting the militant group in Syria and Iraq.

The group provided no evidence for the claim.

Castaner announced that the Strasbourg Christmas market would reopen on Friday.

A French soldier from the Sentinelle security operation stands guard on Place Kleber in central Strasbourg, December 13, 2018. /VCG Photo

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed "the solidarity of the whole country" towards the victims as he arrived for a European summit in Brussels.

"It is not only France that has been hit... but a great European city as well," he added, referring to the seat of the European Parliament in the eastern French city that lies on the border with Germany.

(Cover: Investigators work during a police operation during which the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, was killed in the Meinau district in Strasbourg, December 13, 2018. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters