Hundreds of Mauritanian soldiers and civilians attended the funeral of a police officer killed while arresting four terrorists who had escaped from prison. The funeral was held in Nouakchott on Sunday (March 12).
Relatives, several ministers, heads of security agencies and the rest of the audience held the funeral prayer in front of the coffin of Gendarmerie Mustafa Ould Khudair Ould Obeid, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse.
The coffin was draped with the national flag in Ibn Abbas’ mosque, not far from the prison from which the terrorists escaped a week ago.
The gendarme(Police Officer, part of the country’s military) was killed on Friday evening (March 10) in a clash with four escapees in the Adrar region (north), hundreds of kilometers from Nouakchott.
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On Saturday (March 11), Nigerien authorities said three fugitives had been killed, including Salek Ould Cheikh, who was on death row, while the fourth was arrested.
Although not abolished, Mauritania has not used the death penalty since 1987.
Two members of the National Guard were killed as the terrorists escaped from Nouakchott prison.
Ould Cheikh was sentenced to death in 2011 in connection with the attempted assassination of then President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and the attack on the French embassy.
Salek Ould Cheikh previously escaped from prison in December 2015 before being arrested in Guinea-Bissau and returning to Mauritania three weeks later.
