On the Rhine bridge, cars heading for Germany have to wait until four o'clock on Thursday. Two days after the mortal attack in Strasbourg, each vehicle is scrupulously searched by the investigators, looking for the number one suspect, Cherif Chekatt. After taking a taxi to the Neudorf district in the south of the city, the man, wounded in the arm, vanished. Caval in the city that saw him grow up? Escape to abroad? While France is in "urgent attack", the highest level of the Vigipirate plan, the 720 members of the forces of the order mobilized do not exclude any track.
Eastern borders under surveillance. "Warning, dangerous individual, especially do not intervene yourself," warned the police in a notice of research released Wednesday night, describing a man of 1.80 m, "matte skin", "normal body" and "mark on the front". Has the attacker ever been able to cross the border? Wednesday, an intervention conducted in Kehl, on the other side of the Rhine, failed to trace him. The French authorities "are of course in connection with the German authorities," said the prefect Jean-Luc Marx. According to the German TV channel RBB, the suspect received a call from Germany just before acting, without dropping out. Switzerland, 130 km south of Strasbourg, has also strengthened its border security measures.
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In the city hit Tuesday, investigators are also raking multiple addresses in search of Cherif Chekatt. The Christmas market remains closed, the prefecture believing that the security conditions are not sufficient for reopening. Did the suspect benefit from complicity in Strasbourg, where he was born? His parents and two of his brothers were placed in custody on Wednesday and a major police operation was conducted in the neighborhood in the afternoon. In Europe 1, the inhabitants of Neudorf described the "feats" of the suspect, his brothers and their friends to climb fences, slip on the roof of a garage or hide in a cabin during interventions police forces.
"Solidarities, friendships, abilities". Despite his injured arm during a shootout with soldiers Tuesday night, Cherif Chekatt, sentenced 27 times by the courts, was able to "redo" and hide in his neighborhood. "He knows his territory very well," said criminologist Alain Bauer on Wednesday morning on Europe 1. "He's a criminal with a gang." Tuesday morning, the man had escaped from a net in another case. "He was not the only one targeted by this operation.They were five, he is the only one who managed to not be present, he has solidarities, friendships, abilities."
How long can this run then last? "The media time is not the judicial time nor the time of the stalking Remember, in January 2015, with the hunt for the Kouachi brothers, it took a few days but we arrived at our ends", estimated de franceinfo Stanislas Gaudon, National Secretary of the Alliance Police Union. In 2012, the hunt for Mohamed Merah, author of the killings of Toulouse and Montauban, lasted about ten days. But his identification had taken more time, investigators having a time considered the trail of a shooter from the far-right violent. Thanks to the testimony of the taxi driver who drove him to his neighborhood, the investigators went back to the name of Cherif Chekatt on Tuesday night.