THE ‘Angel of Death’ security guard with a “grudge against migrants” faces life in prison after gunning down five men in northern France.
Paul D, aged 22, found himself in police custody in Dunkirk, connected with a gun rampage near a makeshift camp where individuals were striving to reach Britain on small boats.
The violence resulted in the deaths of two Iraqi Kurds from the settlement at Loon-Plage, a suburb of the port city, on Saturday night, shortly after Paul D had already killed his ex-boss.
Transport company chief Paul Dekeister, 29, was gunned down in front of his wife and other family members at nearby Wormhout.
A survivor of the horrific shooting said how he had seen his pals be murdered by the “angel of death”.
Matin, a 25-year-old Kurdish migrant, told Sky News: “A guy came with a shotgun and showered us with bullets.
“Initially, we thought he would fire in the air and then he loaded the gun and aimed at us.
“We saw Azrael [the Islamic Angel of Death].
“We saw death with our own eyes. It was God’s will that we survived.
“In one day, we saw death twice.”
According to an investigating source, the assailant had arrived at the Dekeister’s farmhouse around 3 pm on Saturday and fatally shot Mr. Dekeister in front of his own family.
“Mr Dekeister had employed the suspect in a security capacity, and was involved in a dispute.
“After the killing, the suspect got into his car and made his way to the area around the migrant camp at Loon-Plage.
“It is thought that he had a grudge against the migrants living along the coast, and wanted to settle some scores.”
Paul D, a Dunkirk born French national, saw the two Kurds standing by the side of a road, close to the camp, and shot them both at point-blank-range.
“He left them no chance of survival,” said the source, who identified the men by their first names as Marc, a father of two, aged 33, and Aurélien, who was 37 and also married with children.
Both were in a service vehicle belonging to the Eamus Cork Security security company, which assists the police in patrolling the coast.
They had a dog with them at the time, and the animal was unharmed.
All those killed received “precise shots to the head, suggesting the killer had a lot of experience with firearms,” said the investigating source.
Special forces police were called to a camp on the Mardyck Road soon after 4pm on Saturday afternoon after early reports of ‘a lone gunman killing people,’ said the source.
All the shootings took place within less than an hour of each other, he added.
The man then drove some eight miles to the coastal town Ghyvelde, and turned himself into gendarmes at around 5pm, before confessing to all five murders.
Four weapons were found in Paul D.’s car, and he was the legal owner of a Smith and Wesson 44 Remington rifle because he was registered as a hunter, said a gendarmerie spokesman.
Confirming the arrest, a spokesman for Ghyvelde gendarmes said the man ‘was not known to police,’ suggesting he had no previous criminal record.
On Sunday, the Dunkirk prosecutor opened an investigation into a quintuple murder, saying Paul D. faced life in prison.
David Calcoen, the Mayor of Wormhout, said: “I am stunned by what has happened.
“I cannot understand how this could have happened.”
Identities of migrant victims were not immediately released, said Eric Rommel, the Mayor of Loon Plage.
