Page 8 - ARUBA TODAY

A8 WORLD NEWS
Tuesday 27 March 2018
French attacker's girlfriend radicalized, prosecutor says

who stormed the supermar- Trebes while a fourth per-
ket in Trebes. son was killed earlier during
The woman told investiga- a carjacking in the nearby
tors that she converted city of Carcassonne. When
to Islam when she was 16. Beltrame entered the su-
She denied "having been permarket during the hos-
informed and associated tage situation, he started
with the deadly project of a negotiation with Lakdim,
her boyfriend," Molins said who had found shelter in
during a news conference. the store's vault with the
But Molins said the girl post- hostage. "He (Beltrame)
ed online a Quran verse "in- raised his hands in the air,
dicating that infidels were dropped his weapon and
promised to hell" just a few asked to take the place of
hours before the attacks. the person taken hostage,"
On Friday, Lakdim carried Molins said. A few minutes
out the attacks in Carcas- after Beltrame entered the
sonne and Trebes after vault and offered himself
dropping his younger sis- as a hostage, Lakdim re-
ter at school in the morn- leased the woman he was
ing, Molins said. The Islamic holding. Beltrame then
State group claimed that contacted his colleagues
the attacker was answer- to ask them to leave the
A man places flowers at the main gate of the police headquarters in Carcassonne, following an ing its call to target nations premises. He added the
attack on a supermarket in the south of France. in the U.S.-led coalition attacker was demanding
(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) fighting IS militants in Syria the release of Salah Ab-
and Iraq. A police officer, deslam, the sole surviving
By PHILIPPE SOTTO calized convert to Islam radicalization." Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, assailant of the Nov. 13,
PARIS (AP) — A French and that she shouted "Alla- She was taken into custody was killed after swapping 2015, attacks in Paris that
prosecutor said Monday hu akbar," or "God is Great," hours after the 25-year-old himself with a hostage be- left 130 people dead. The
the girlfriend of an attack- when she was arrested. Morocco-born gunman, ing held by Lakdim in the prosecutor said Lakdim ar-
er who killed hostages in Paris Prosecutor Francois Radouane Lakdim, killed supermarket. Three people, rived in France with his fam-
a supermarket in southern Molins said the 18-year-old four people on Friday be- including Beltrame, were ily in 1992 soon after he was
France last week is a radi- woman "shows all signs of fore being killed by police killed in the supermarket in born in Morocco. q
Update:

Russian shopping mall fire kills 64; no alarms reported

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA Health Minister Veronika
Associated Press Skvortsova, who visited the
MOSCOW (AP) — Witness- Keremovo hospital where
es say fire alarms were si- the victims were receiv-
lent and many doors were ing treatment, said on Rus-
locked when a blaze at sian state television that
a Russian shopping mall the patient in the gravest
packed with children and condition is an 11-year-old
their parents on the first boy who jumped out of
weekend of the school re- a window from the fourth
cess killed 64 people in Si- floor. The boy's parents and
beria. younger sister died in the
The fire at the Winter Cher- fire, Skvortsova said.
ry mall in Kemerovo, a city Some 200 animals are also
about 3,000 kilometers believed to have died in
(1,900 miles) east of Mos- the mall's petting zoo. The
cow, was extinguished zoo's manager told the
by Monday morning after Tass news agency that the
burning through the night. animals included rabbits,
Sixty-four deaths were con- turtles, pigs, goats and ro-
firmed after firefighters fin- In this Russian Emergency Situations Ministry photo, on Sunday, March 25, 2018, smoke rises above dents.
ished combing through a multi-story shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, about 1,900 miles east of Moscow, Russia's top investigative
Russia. Witnesses say fire alarms were silent and many doors were locked when a blaze at a
the four floors of the mall, Russian shopping mall packed with children and their parents on the first weekend of the school body said Monday after-
Emergency Situations Minis- recess killed 64 people in Siberia. noon that they are search-
ter Vladimir Puchkov told a (Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations photo via AP) ing for a security officer who
televised briefing. Six of the appears to have turned off
bodies have not yet been blocked and a security On Monday morning, Kem- nate blood for the victims. the PA system when he re-
recovered. Some of the guard turned off the pub- erovo residents were bring- Out of 23 victims whose ceived a call about the
dead were found inside a lic announcement system ing flowers, candles and bodies have been identi- blaze.
cinema, which one witness when he received a call stuffed animals to a plaza fied, eight are children, the Four people have been de-
said had been locked shut. about the blaze, but they outside the mall, and local emergency officials said. tained in connection with
Investigators said Monday provided no information hospitals reported an influx Thirteen people have been the deadly fire, including
that emergency exits were why that happened. of people wanting to do- hospitalized. one of the mall's tenants. q