French supermarket siege: 'Hero' police officer fighting for life after swapping himself with hostage
Three people have been killed and 16 injured after Redouane Lakdim took hostages in a supermarket in Trebes, south west France.
Saturday 24 March 2018 06:31, UK
A "hero" police officer is fighting for his life in hospital after swapping himself with a hostage taken by an Islamist terrorist.
Redouane Lakdim, 25, killed three people and injured 16, two of those seriously, during a hostage-taking attack at a supermarket in Trebes, south west France.
During a standoff with police, Lakdim demanded the release of Salah Abdeslam - the only surviving member of the IS cell that attacked Paris in 2015.
Police officer Arnaud Beltrame later swapped himself with the last remaining hostage and was shot by Lakdim - prompting counter-terror officers to storm the supermarket and shoot the terrorist dead.
Lakdim had hijacked a car in the nearby city of Carcassonne, gravely wounding the driver and killing the passenger, before driving toward Trebes.
He shot at police officers before hiding in the supermarket, taking several people hostage.
Lakdim killed two people before giving most of the hostages up, keeping one woman as a human shield, who Mr Beltrame traded places with.
The officer kept his mobile phone on a table, which enabled police outside to keep track of what was going on.
Later, a woman Lakdim lived with in Carcassonne was arrested in connection to the attack.
Commending Mr Beltrame's actions, President Emmanuel Macron said: "He saved lives and honoured his colleagues and his country.
"He is currently fighting for his life and all our thoughts go out to him and his family."
Mr Beltrame, who is married with no children, took part in an exercise on dealing with a mass shooting in a supermarket as recently as December.
France remains on high alert, with 240 people killed by Islamist terrorists since 2015.
Lakdim, who was born in Morocco, was known to police, but only for "delinquent" crimes, like drug dealing.
He was on a watchlist from 2014, according to France's prosecutor Francois Molins, but was not believed to be preparing any terrorist acts.
One neighbour told Le Parisien newspaper that the Islamist had dropped one of his little sisters off at school on Friday morning.
Another called him "calm" and "nice" and said he "always had a kind word to say".
French interior minister Gerard Collomb said: "We had monitored him and did not think he had been radicalised. He was already under surveillance when he suddenly decided to act."
The investigation will question how Lakdim was able to get a gun, and how and when he became radicalised.
Christian Guibbert, who was in the supermarket when the suspect arrived, said he heard several explosions.
He said: "I saw a man lying on the floor and another person, very agitated, with a handgun in one hand and a knife in the other, yelling 'Allahu akbar'.
"After that, I took my wife and my sister-in-law and some customers nearby and we went to look for shelter. I put them in a butcher's fridge - closed from the inside. I turned around and walked towards the man and called the Gendarmerie.
"I told them what was going on and described the individual.
"At that moment, he saw me and he started running after me, so of course I left. I managed to escape him.
"When I turned around he wasn't there anymore so I got out through an emergency exit and I saw the gendarmes arriving. I gave them his position (inside the shop) and told them what he was carrying in his hands.
"He looked like a regular guy. About 25-30 years...very annoyed, but a regular guy."