Earlier in the day, the shooter was identified as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, reportedly a native of the “Christmas capital”.
Addressing his identity, Aldo Carcaci noted that the perpetrator, whom he referred to as “this Strasbourg radicalized killer is evidently an Islamic terrorist”, adding he could already be in Molenbeek, “the ‘hell hole’ of Brussels, to use the expression of Donald Trump,” where multiple Islamists have taken refuge in the largely Muslim population. Meanwhile, Brussels, the MP remarked, is only 3 hours and 30 minutes from Strasbourg by road.
According to Carcaci, it is particularly annoying to read about the incredible ‘precautions’ taken by the French government to avoid saying that this man is a terrorist.
“They say he might have acted ‘in despair’. It is the same officials who will endlessly talk about ‘fake news’, but their omissions are fake news in themselves”, the politician asserted.
The gunman opened fire near Strasbourg's Christmas market on Tuesday evening, leaving three dead and 13 others injured.
Cherif Chekatt, who is still on the run and is being searched for by hundreds of security personnel, was previously mentioned in police files in connection with no fewer than 25 past offences, committed in Germany and France, as well as radical Islamist views, police said.
One source said his apartment had been searched by police on Tuesday morning, just hours before the shooting, in a probe into an attempted murder. He was not at home at the time.