For days, emergency services threw through steep and wooded terrain in France. They were looking for a man who is said to have shot two colleagues. Now the ghost is probably over.
Nîmes (dpa) – After days of flight, a suspected shooter who was wanted in France with a large contingent was caught. The man had surrendered, wrote Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Friday evening on Twitter.
The 29-year-old man is said to have killed his supervisor and a colleague in a sawmill in the small town of Plantiers in the Occitania region on Tuesday. Hundreds of emergency services searched for the man for days.
“Thanks to all representatives of the state for their extraordinary commitment, day and night, during these last three days,” wrote Darmanin. According to media reports, the man was taken into police custody. He had surrendered without bloodshed, without violence, said the mayor of Les Plantiers, Bernard Mounier, the broadcaster BFMTV.
Investigators had last warned that the man could be dangerous and possibly armed. A manhunt was published on Thursday. On Friday, too, around 350 rescue workers had thrown through the steep and wooded department of Gard. According to media reports, helicopters, police dogs and cartographers had also participated in the search.
“We know that this is a man with weapons, that he knows how to use them and that one of the weapons in his possession is a particularly dangerous one with a range of several hundred meters,” said the Nîmes public prosecutor, Éric Maurel. The background to the crime was initially unclear. The wanted man was called by his father in an emotional audio message to surrender: “Valentin, it’s papa, I love you, we love you.”
The 29-year-old is suspected of killing his boss and a work colleague with bullets in the head in Plantiers. According to media reports, there could have been a conflict over working hours. In the media there was talk of a “manhunt in the Cevennes”. The attacker fled on foot and was armed with a precision rifle and a pistol, the gendarmerie reported. The suspect is a marksman and hunter, wrote the daily newspaper “Le Parisien”.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210514-99-603002 / 2
