Sherif Sheikhat: Fugitive on S list
Friday 14/December/2018 - 12:51 PM
Ahmed Lamlom
French police have announced that they are continuing their search for the
suspect in the terrorist attack in the eastern city of Strasbourg, Sherif
Sheikhat, 29, who is on the S list of people posing a threat to national
security.
France ranked second in most European countries targeted by terrorists, in the
annual report of the European Union Police Agency, with 54 operations reported,
including operations that were carried out and those that the police were able
to prevent.
Sheikhat opened fire on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, killing two people
and 13 others on Tuesday night.
Investigators say Sheikhat has a large criminal record of 217 convictions for
theft and violence. On the morning of the attack, it was scheduled to arrest
him for his link to an attempted murder linked to an armed robbery last summer.
Criminal activity
Sheikhat was born in Strasbourg in February 1989. He came from a family of
Moroccan origin. He did not complete his education. He left school at a young
age. He began to work in low-paid occupations before his criminal activity
started with theft and then he joined criminal gangs. In the latter part of his
life, he began his extremism and it is believed that this has occurred during
his imprisonment between 2013 and 2015.
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported that Sheikha had previously served
prison terms for charges in France, Germany and Switzerland, citing violence
during his sentence and religious convictions. He was jailed in Germany in 2017
for related offenses.
"The practices of the religious shrines in prison were marked by
extremism, prompting the security services to put him on the S list, to which
he was added in 2016,” said French Attorney General Remy Hitz at a press
conference in Paris.
