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A police officer stands guard at the entrance to the Paris courthouse. © Thibault Camus/AP/dpa
A bloody attack during the 2018 Christmas market traumatized Strasbourg. Now a court has convicted the Islamist attacker's aides. Does this heal the wounds in the city?
Paris - The devastating attack by an Islamist during the Christmas market in Strasbourg more than five years ago left the Alsace metropolis permanently traumatized - now a Paris jury has sentenced one of the perpetrators' aides to 30 years in prison. By procuring weapons, the 42-year-old main defendant helped the perpetrator, whose Islamist radicalization was known to him, to implement his terrorist plans, the court ruled on Thursday evening. The court found that the defendant knew about his friend's terrorist plan, but was not an accomplice himself.
Five people were killed and eleven others injured in the attack in 2018. The panic and terror from back then became tangible again during the five-week trial with dozens of co-plaintiffs and relatives of the victims.
Prison sentences for other helpers too
The court sentenced two other defendants, who also helped procure weapons without knowing about the attack plans, to prison terms of four and five years. Since they have already spent a long time in custody, the remaining sentence was suspended or can be served under house arrest with an ankle bracelet. Another defendant was acquitted. An appeal against the verdicts is possible.
The public prosecutor's office had demanded 30 years' imprisonment for the main defendant, five years' imprisonment for the other two people now convicted and an acquittal for the fourth defendant. The defense had pleaded for a lighter sentence for the main defendant, who came from Ivory Coast, and for acquittal for the other defendants.
The attacker caused sheer panic in the streets of Strasbourg
On the evening of December 11, 2018, the Islamist Chérif Chekatt attacked people with a firearm and a large knife in the pre-Christmas hustle and bustle in alleys and squares, sometimes while shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”). During his bloody foray through the city, where panic was increasingly spreading through the streets, several musicians tried to stop the attacker. There was an exchange of fire with the military forces deployed to protect the Christmas market. But Chekatt initially managed to escape in a taxi. Two days later, he was killed in a shootout with officers in Strasbourg after a major manhunt in the Franco-German border area.
The terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack. Chekatt had sworn his loyalty to IS in a video. The attacker, who has multiple criminal records and has North African roots, is said to have become radicalized in prison and was known to the authorities as an Islamist threat. Like those now convicted, he had a petty criminal background.
Just hours before the attack, weapons were found during a search of his apartment - including grenades and knives. The police wanted to arrest the 29-year-old for attempted murder, but the man was not at home. His father informed him that the police were approaching - then Chekatt apparently decided to carry out his planned attack that same evening.
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Hundreds of eyewitnesses were traumatized
In addition to the killed and injured victims, a large number of direct eyewitnesses were also severely traumatized. Around 1,000 people took advantage of mental health services after the attack, and many are still receiving treatment.
The attack in Strasbourg was one of a series of Islamist terrorist attacks that have shaken France in recent years and in which around 250 people were killed. France as a nation was permanently traumatized by this.
The verdicts in the trial now come at a time when the highest terror alert level is once again in effect in France. Terror had already come into focus as a real danger again in the fall, when a radicalized Islamist stabbed a teacher in a school in the north. And security questions about this summer's Olympics arose after an Islamist killed a German and injured two other people near the Eiffel Tower in early December. dpa