“Shortly after Chekatt’s death, the Islamic State group’s Amaq news agency claimed he was a “soldier” of the group. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner rejected the claim as ‘totally opportunistic.’”
But Chekatt’s father “acknowledged that his son backed the IS group.”
So once again we see authorities dismiss an Islamic State claim of involvement in a jihad terror attack, only for that claim to turn out to be true.
Note also that “the father said he went to police of his own accord and on a suspicion the night of the son’s rampage with a handgun and a knife.”
He didn’t go before that, even though he knew his son supported the Islamic State.
“He also said that if his son had told him about a project to kill ‘I would have denounced him, and he wouldn’t have killed or been killed.’”
Sure he would’ve, but he knew that his son supported a jihad terror group that has repeatedly called for jihad massacres of French civilians, and he did nothing. There are so many supporters of the Islamic State in France that French authorities probably wouldn’t have done anything anyway, but the fact that the father didn’t contact authorities is telling.
In any case, Abdelkrim Chekatt looks like a true believer himself. Is his beard really red, or is it dyed with henna in imitation of Muhammad?
“Father of Strasbourg shooter says son supported Islamic State,” AFP, December 16, 2018:
PARIS, France — The man described as the father of the 29-year-old suspect in this week’s deadly Christmas market attack in Strasbourg says his son subscribed to the beliefs of the Islamic State group.
The interview with Abdelkrim Chekatt by the state-run France 2 television channel was shown Saturday night, two days after the son was killed in a confrontation with three police officers in his childhood neighborhood in Strasbourg following a massive manhunt. Four people died in the Tuesday night attack. A dozen others were wounded….
Chekatt said he had seen his son, Cherif Chekatt, three days before the attack but couldn’t contact him while he was on the run.
He acknowledged that his son backed the IS group.
“He’d say, for example, that Daesh, fights for the just cause and all that,” the red-bearded father said, using the common term in France and elsewhere for the Islamic State group.
The interview, initially outdoors with the father, continued briefly inside with Cheriff Chekatt’s mother, Rouadja Rouag, who expressed shock and sorrow for the deaths. France 2 said the couple had been divorced for a long time.
Abdelkrim Chekatt, a French-Algerian, said he’d tried in the past to dissuade his son from backing the Islamic State, saying, “You don’t see the atrocities they commit.” The son would reply that “it’s not them,” the father said.
Shortly after Chekatt’s death, the Islamic State group’s Amaq news agency claimed he was a “soldier” of the group. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner rejected the claim as “totally opportunistic.”…
The father said he went to police of his own accord and on a suspicion the night of the son’s rampage with a handgun and a knife.
He said he told police that “if ever you locate Cherif, tell me. I’ll go to him and try to reason with him to give up.”
He also said that if his son had told him about a project to kill “I would have denounced him, and he wouldn’t have killed or been killed.”