The events date back to August 19. A Frenchman holed up in a house in a Bosnian village, who had fired on residents and the police while shouting “Allah akbar”, was killed in August by the latter, local authorities said on Thursday September 12.
He shot at residents of the village of Zovi Do in the Nevesinje region of the Bosnian Serb entity before exchanging fire with police.
The attacker opened fire when several people went to “inspect” the abandoned house he was occupying, after a lamb disappeared in the village, a villager told the press.
An arsenal discovered
A police special forces unit dispatched to the scene negotiated with the man for six hours before killing him in an exchange of fire.
According to regional police commander Sinisa Laketa, the assailant was killed when he “opened the door of the house and started shooting at the police, shouting ‘Allah akbar'”.
Police found two rifles, rifle grenades and a rocket launcher in the house, but no personal documents.
The man was identified three weeks later by his fingerprints, in cooperation with the French authorities. He is Elie MD, born in 2002 in Langon (Gironde), a spokesman for the Trebinje regional prosecutor’s office, Srdjan Vukanovic, told AFP. He had probably lived in this abandoned house for several months, according to investigators.
Investigation in progress
At this point, authorities do not know why he was in Bosnia and whether he was part of a group, questions that are under investigation, according to the prosecutor’s spokesman.
The village of Zovi Do is located on the “Balkan Route”, used every year by thousands of migrants trying to reach Western Europe.
Since the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country has been divided into two entities, one Serbian and the other Croat-Muslim, largely autonomous and linked by a weakened central government.
- BFMTV.com
