TUNISIA-SECURITY/GUNMAN COFFIN Family hold funeral for Tunisian museum gunman

Record ID: 376987

  • Title: TUNISIA-SECURITY/GUNMAN COFFIN Family hold funeral for Tunisian museum gunman
  • Date: 22nd March 2015
  • Summary: TUNIS, TUNISIA (MARCH 22, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE OUTSIDE GUNMAN YASSINE AL-ABIDI'S HOME IN OMRANE SUPERIEUR GROUP OF WOMEN GATHERED MEN TAKING COFFIN OFF THE BACK OF A PICK-UP TRUCK MEN CARRYING COFFIN INTO THE HOUSE / WOMEN SCREAMING VARIOUS OF PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE HOUSE MAN STANDING OUTSIDE HOUSE WITH JOURNALISTS HOLDING MICROPHONE'S TO GATES ON THE HOUSE MEN CA
  • Embargoed: 6th April 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Tunisia
  • Country: Tunisia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6BMW0CZN6NVOI26UN4VDLOBB8
  • Story Text: Relatives and friends of Yassin al-Abidi gathered for his funeral on Sunday (March 22) at his home in Omrane Superieur in Tunis.
    After his coffin was driven away by male family members and friends Abidi's mother cried and screamed that her son, who with a friend killed 23 people, mostly foreign tourists, at Tunisia's Bardo museum on Wednesday (March 18), is a victim.
    Tunisia's Prime Minister Habib Essid said Abidi had been under surveillance but "not for anything very special". Security forces shot dead Abidi and the other shooter Hatem al-Khashnawi on Friday.
    Abidi worked at a travel agency, and according to his family and friends was a popular man.
    On the day of the attack at Tunisia's Bardo museum, Abidi sat down to a breakfast of olive oil and dates with his family and left for work at his travel agency as usual, relatives said.
    His family say they cannot understand how a lively, popular young man with a taste for the latest imported clothes could have done such a thing.
    Family members said he was typical of the young men of Tunis' Omrane Superieur suburb.
    He graduated in French, held down a job and showed no sign of the hard-line Islamist ideology that would drive him to commit the worst militant attack in a decade.
    Abidi and his fellow gunman were trained at a jihadist camp in Libya before the Bardo attack, the Tunisian government has said.
    Officials said the two men had been recruited at mosques in Tunisia and travelled to Libya in September.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register