The arrest took place around 1:30 p.m. and “the person was placed in police custody”, indicated the prosecutor of the Republic of Colmar, Catherine Sorita-Minard, in a press release, without specifying whether it was indeed the alleged shooter, as several sources close to the investigation told AFP.
According to one of them, the person arrested, placed in police custody in the premises of the judicial police in Nanterre, is 17 years old, while an accomplice, just of age, is still wanted.
“The investigations are continuing”, simply underlined the prosecutor of Colmar.
In the evening, police officers from the Raid and the BRI, heavily armed and supported by their colleagues from Colmar and the CRS, took over and sealed off a 15-storey tower, located 500 meters from the scene of the assassination, under the eyes of some 200 onlookers and residents of the building.
“I came home from work at 7 p.m. and the police forbade us to enter” the tower, citing “security issues”, said a resident, Annick Basse, to AFP.
On August 14, the victim of the assassination was passing through Colmar to meet friends in the Europe district, a district called Republican Reconquest (QRR) located to the west of this tourist city. The young man, a refugee in France since 2017, was killed by a bullet in the chest.
Bothered by the noise of a scooter, Abdul Quayyeem Ahmadzai had asked the driver to move away. The latter had then insulted him, before returning “with several individuals”, had detailed, after the opening of a judicial investigation against X for assassination, Ms. Sorita-Minard.
A brawl had broken out between the two groups and, “while some of the protagonists dispersed, a shot was fired by an individual, according to the witnesses heard within the framework of the investigation, in the direction of the victim”, according to the magistrate.
The young Afghan died of his injuries in hospital overnight. The autopsy confirmed that he had been hit by a single bullet.
The alleged shooter and his accomplice had since been on the run, to the great despair of the relatives of the victim, whose coffin was to be repatriated to Afghanistan on Tuesday.
– Circumstances –
“We thank the police for having caught the person, it’s good news”, reacted to AFP Sardarwali Tarakhin, friend of the victim, visibly relieved like other relatives by the news of this arrest.
On Monday, around 200 people gathered around his coffin for a funeral ceremony at the Great Mosque of Strasbourg. His relatives, annoyed that the culprits were still at large, had demanded “justice for Abdul”.
Employed in a car factory in Mulhouse, Abdul Quayyeem Ahmadzai leaves a wife and four young children who remained in Afghanistan, according to his friends.
On Twitter, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin welcomed the arrest of the alleged shooter. “The police always win in the end. Thanks to the investigators for their hard work,” he wrote.
Shortly after the assassination, the minister had dispatched the CRS 8 to Colmar. This mobile law enforcement unit capable of intervening very quickly throughout the territory increased the checks for a few days.
The hypothesis of an “urban rodeo” was first mentioned as a possible trigger for this deadly brawl before being challenged. “It is not because someone is on a scooter that he is doing a rodeo”, noted, two days after the facts, the LR mayor of Colmar, Eric Straumann.
“This arrest will help to understand the circumstances of this assassination. Congratulations to the Police”, tweeted the city councilor.
