Strasbourg Christmas Market Terror Attack Trial Kicks Off

Police forces stand guard next to the Paris criminal court for the beginning of the trial over the terror attack at the Strasbourg Christmas market in December 2018, in Paris, France, 29 February 2024 (EPA)
Police forces stand guard next to the Paris criminal court for the beginning of the trial over the terror attack at the Strasbourg Christmas market in December 2018, in Paris, France, 29 February 2024 (EPA)
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Strasbourg Christmas Market Terror Attack Trial Kicks Off

Police forces stand guard next to the Paris criminal court for the beginning of the trial over the terror attack at the Strasbourg Christmas market in December 2018, in Paris, France, 29 February 2024 (EPA)
Police forces stand guard next to the Paris criminal court for the beginning of the trial over the terror attack at the Strasbourg Christmas market in December 2018, in Paris, France, 29 February 2024 (EPA)

The trial of four men suspected of having played a key role in supplying weapons to the perpetrator of the December 2018 shootings at the Strasbourg Christmas markets began on Thursday.

Five people were killed and 11 others injured after a gunman opened fire near a crowded Christmas market in the eastern French city of Strasbourg. The four men are suspected of having played a key role in supplying weapons to the perpetrator of the December 2018 attack.

Chérif Chekatt, 29, opened fire with a 19th-century revolver on 11 December in the historic centre.

After the attack, he hailed a taxi to the south of the city. After a 48-hour manhunt, he was killed in a shootout with police.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the Strasbourg attack via its Amaq news agency. Later, Chekatt pledged allegiance to ISIS in a video found in his apartment.

Chekatt, who was born and raised in the city, attacked passersby with a gun and knife at three different locations in the shadow of the city’s cathedral, where the Christmas market attracts millions of visitors each year.

Chekatt had a long criminal record with more than 20 convictions for theft and violence. He had spent several spells in jail and was on a watchlist of radicalised former prisoners, according to The Guardian.

The trial is due to last until April 5.

Four French men, aged between 34 and 43, are on trial in Paris. Three – Stéphane Bodein and Frédéric Bodein, brothers who buy and sell used cars, and Christian Hoffmann, an unemployed mechanic – are accused of involvement by helping to procure weapons.

Only one of the defendants, Audrey Mondjehi-Kpanhoue, 43, a former security guard who had been a cellmate of Chekatt, is facing terrorism charges and could face life in prison.

A fifth man, aged 84, will not appear for health reasons, and is likely to be tried separately at a later date.

The trial will hear accounts of survivors and the families of those killed, including a father who had fled Afghanistan and was visiting the market with his children, as well as a Thai tourist. Dozens of survivors were left with life-changing injuries and psychological trauma, The Guardian said.

One survivor, now working as a teacher in Paris, said how the attack changed her life forever after two of her friends were shot in front of her.

The woman in her 30s, who asked not to be named, described how she had just handed in her PhD thesis and was working as a student journalist on a radio station at the European parliament in Strasbourg.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."