French police find Islamic State notes in home of supermarket attacker

Moroccan-born terrorist who killed four, including heroic cop, left homemade bombs, a gun, and a hunting knife inside store

A French judicial official said Saturday that police searching the home of the terrorist who killed four people in a deadly rampage a day earlier in southern France found notes referring to the Islamic State jihadist group that appeared to be a final testament.

Also found in the search of Moroccan-born Redouane Lakdim’s home was a computer and telephone, the official said.

The official said there apparently was no mention in the notes of the attack plans.

Investigators also found three homemade explosive devices, a handgun, and a hunting knife inside the supermarket in the French town of Trebes, the official said, suggesting his intent to do further damage.

Lakdim was known to police for petty crime and drug dealing. But he was also under surveillance and since 2014 was on the so-called Fiche S list, a government register of individuals suspected of being radicalized but who have yet to perform acts of terrorism.

Despite this, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said there was “no warning sign” that Lakdim would carry out an attack.

French security and police gather outside the Super U supermarket in the town of Trebes, southern France, where a terrorist took hostages and killed at least two before he was killed by security forces, on March 23, 2018. (AFP Photo/Pascal Pavani)

The four-hour drama began at 10:13 a.m. Friday when Lakdim hijacked a car near Carcassonne, killing one person in the car and wounding the other, the prosecutor said.

Lakdim then fired six shots at police officers on their way back from jogging near Carcassonne, hitting one in the shoulder, said Yves Lefebvre of the SGP Police-FO police union.

The attacker then went to a Super U supermarket in Trebes, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Toulouse, shooting and killing two people in the market and taking hostages. He shouted “Allahu akbar!” — the Arabic phrase for “God is great” — and said he was a “soldier of the Islamic State” as he entered the Super U, where about 50 people were inside, Molins said.

Special police units converged on the scene while authorities blocked roads.

Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame was among a group of officers who rushed to the scene in the supermarket and offered to take the place of a woman being held as a final hostage by Lakdim.

In this image dated March 2013 and provided by regional newspaper Ouest France, Arnaud Beltrame poses for a photo in Avranches, western France. The officer who offered to be swapped for a female hostage was identified as Col. Arnaud Beltrame. He managed to surreptitiously leave his phone on so that police outside could hear what was going on inside the supermarket — and crucially, decide when to storm it. (Ouest France via AP)

Unbeknownst to the Morocco-born hostage-taker, Beltrame left his cellphone on so police outside could hear what was happening in the store. They stormed the building when they heard gunshots, officials said. Beltrame was fatally wounded.

On Saturday, President Emmanuel Macron said that Beltrame had “died a hero,” and deserved “the respect and admiration of the whole nation.”