Charlie Hebdo cartoonist’s widow seeks probe into police ‘failings’
Maryse Wolinski asks judge to investigate security response to Paris terror attacks, says cops didn’t send sufficient back-up
The widow of a cartoonist murdered in Paris in January has asked a court to probe the alleged “failings” of the French police in responding to the jihadist massacre on the Charlie Hebdo magazine.
Maryse Wolinski, the wife of celebrated caricaturist Georges Wolinski, who was gunned down January 7, said she was certain the security response to the attack had been inadequate, The Guardian reported Wednesday.
“I’m not angry with those who are left behind, I am angry in general about what has happened. Were there failings? Yes, of course. Why was there no [police] van? Why did the GIGN (an elite police unit) not turn up?” she said.
Police did not send enough reinforcements to the scene, despite several tip-offs about the gunmen, she charged.
“There were numerous phone calls from different people in the building before the [gunmen] arrived at the editorial office. Therefore, one wonders why it was three officers on bicycles who arrived when the reports were of two armed men wearing hoods and masks,” she said.
According to the report, Wolinski told the French radio station RTL that she has requested access to police files and will study the information before pursuing further legal action.
Georges Wolinski, 80, a Jewish Tunisia native who moved to France as a teenager, was known for his cynical and at times vulgar style. After entering journalism in the 1960s, he went on to work at leading French publications such as L’Humanite, Le Nouvel Observateur and Paris Match.
Wolinski was one of 12 people killed in the shooting attack at Charlie Hebdo last January by two Islamist gunmen. The massacre was followed several days later with an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, in which four Jewish men were killed.
The Times of Israel Community.