http://centurylink.net/news/read/article/the_associated_press-french_hero_officer_who_swapped_himself_for_hostag-ap/category/newsTREBES, France (AP) — A French police officer who offered himself up to an Islamic extremist gunman in exchange for a hostage has died, raising the death toll in the attack in southern France to four. He was honored Saturday as a national hero of "exceptional courage and selflessness."
Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, 44, was among the first officers to respond to the attack Friday on the supermarket in the French town of Trebes.
Beltrame, who joined the elite police special forces in 2003 and served in Iraq in 2005, had organized a training session in the Aude region in December for just such a hostage situation. At the time, he armed his officers with paintball guns, according to the Depeche du Midi newspaper.
"We want to be as close to real conditions as possible," he said then.
But when he went inside the supermarket Friday, he gave up his own weapon and volunteered himself in exchange for a female hostage.
Unbeknownst to the Morocco-born hostage-taker, he left his cellphone on so police outside could hear what was happening in the store. They stormed the building when they heard gunshots, officials said. Beltrame was fatally wounded.
Investigators quickly searched the home of the attacker, Redouane Lakdim, 25, and found what a judicial official said were notes "that alluded to the Islamic State and appeared like a last testament." They also found a computer and telephone that will be examined for information. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly amid an investigation.
Investigators also found three homemade explosive devices, a handgun and a hunting knife inside the supermarket, the official said. The weapons suggested his intent to do further damage.
Two people were detained for alleged links to a terrorist enterprise, one woman close to Lakdim and a 17-year-old male friend of his, Paris prosecutor's office said.
In addition to the four people killed by the gunman in his rampage Friday, the attacker was killed by police. Fifteen others were injured.
"Arnaud Beltrame died in the service of the nation to which he had already given so much," French President Emmanuel Macron said. "In giving his life to end the deadly plan of a jihadi terrorist, he fell as a hero."
French police and soldiers have been a prime target of attacks by extremists, ........
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