Strasbourg shooting suspect identified

In this image made from video, emergency services arrive on the scene of a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. A French regional official says that a shooting in Strasbourg has left at least one dead and several wounded in the city center near a world-famous Christmas market. The prefect of France’s Bas-Rhin region says the gunman, who is still at large, has been identified. Authorities haven’t given a motive for the shooting. (AP Photo)

STRASBOURG, France — Two police officials have identified the suspected Strasbourg gunman as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt.

One police source said Chekatt’s criminal record mentions 25 judicial cases, including several serious cases of robbery.

The official said his apartment was searched by police on Tuesday morning — hours before the shooting — in an investigation for attempted murder. He was not at home at the time.

The two officials spoke anonymously because they were not allowed to speak publicly on an ongoing investigation.

The suspect was still on the run on Wednesday after he fired gunshots near the famous Christmas market of Strasbourg, killing three and wounding at least 13 people.

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. News agency dpa reported he was deported to France in 2017.

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.

The European Parliament is planning a minute of silence at noon to remember the victims of the Strasbourg shooting, which happened only a few kilometers from the legislature.

European Parliament Antonio Tajani called the shooting “a criminal attack against peace, against democracy, against our model of life.”

He said even as the Parliament went into a lockdown late Tuesday, legislators continued their work until midnight.

“We have to go forward and not change our ways,” Tajani said. /kga