French supermarket attack: Memorial Mass held for victims

A memorial Mass was beingheld in the southern French town of Trebes on Sunday in honour of the four victims killed by an Islamist gunman in a supermarket last week.

Police officer Lt-Col Arnaud Beltrame, who died saving the lives of hostages in the supermarket siege on March 23, will also be honoured in a separate national memorial in Paris soon, reports the BBC.

The Mass was held in the Church of Saint-Etienne in Trebes, a rural town of 5,000 people.

It was the worst jihadi attack under Emmanuel Macron's presidency.

The gunman, Redouane Lakdim, 25, had been on an extremist watchlist and was known to authorities as a petty criminal, but intelligence services had determined he did not post a threat.

He was shot dead by police, the BBC reported.

Lakdim, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror group, was said to have demanded the release of Salah Abdeslam, the most important surviving suspect in the 13 November 2015 attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people.

--IANS

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