Ziyed Ben Belgacem, 39, known locally as a career criminal, had actually killed a police officer in Paris, and then decided to make a day of it by going to the airport and wrestling a gun away from an officer, before getting scared and running into a McDonalds, where he was shot by police.
His home was actually one of the homes searched after the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people. He has been known to have ties to terrorists.
Ben Belgacem had apparently texted his dad and brother “I shot the police” shortly before he himself was shot. The man was stopped by a female police officer for speeding in northern Paris, where he proceeded to shoot and kill her. That was when he decided to go to the airport and see what else he could do.
The Daily Mail reports:
A convicted criminal with links to radical Islam sent a text message to his brother and father stating ‘I shot the police’, shortly before he was shot dead during an attack at Paris Orly airport.
The 39-year-old, named locally as career criminal Ziyed Ben Belgacem, was killed after wrestling a soldier’s gun from her and fleeing into a McDonald’s.
Less than two hours earlier he had shot a female police officer in the head in a northern Paris suburb after being stopped for speeding.
The Paris prosecutors’ office said he was suspected of having terror links, and Ben Belgacem’s home was among scores searched in November 2015 following attacks which killed 130 people.
Ben Belgacem was stopped by police in the suburb of Stains, close to his home, at around 6.55am.
The 39-year-old, who was driving a Renault Clio, pulled out a shotgun and fired at the officers while he was fetching his ID.
He sped off, and the car was found abandoned 11 miles away at Vitry, south of Paris.
He then hijacked a woman’s Citroen Picasso at gunpoint, and this second car was later found parked at the airport.
Today’s incidents come as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit Paris, where they have met with victims of terrorism. They were around 10 miles from the airport when the shooting happened.
Ben Belgacem had previously been jailed for drug trafficking and authorities believe he was radicalised in prison.
He first came to police notice in the late 1990s, when he was involved in a series of bank robberies in the Paris suburb.
Police sources said Ben Belgacem was close to his family, and was staying with them at their flat on a council estate in Garges-lès-Gonesse, where he was first stopped this morning.
The family are French and come from a Tunisian background. He was armed with a shotgun when he opened fire on police. He sped away in a Renault Clio, which was later found in Vitry, in the south of the city, containing a bloody t-shirt.
Here he hijacked a woman’s car at gunpoint and drove to the airport.
