Three charged with supplying arms to terrorists in 2015 Paris attacks

Authorities link sale of weapons to jihadist who killed 4 Jewish men in kosher supermarket, brothers who murdered 12 at Charlie Hebdo

By AFP and ToI Staff 29 April 2017, 4:53 am
Republican guards stand outside the Hyper Cacher supermarket ahead of a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the deadly attack against the store in Paris on January 5, 2017. (AFP/CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT)

Three people have been charged with supplying arms to jihadists who staged deadly attacks in 2015 on a kosher supermarket in Paris and the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly, a judicial source said.

Those charged this week include Samir L., believed to be linked to the sale of weapons to the supermarket attacker, as well as Miguel M. and Abdelaziz A., who are thought to have been involved in trafficking arms between Belgium and France.

Seven people have already been charged over the assaults. The attackers had a wide array of weapons including guns that came from Slovakia.

Investigators are trying to piece together how France-based jihadist Amedy Coulibaly obtained the weapons used in the January 9, 2015 attack on the supermarket.

A policeman stands guard on January 21, 2015 in front the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket where jihadist gunman Amedy Coulibaly killed four Jewish men on January 9, 2015 in Paris. (AFP/Eric Feferberg)

Coulibaly killed four Jewish men after taking shoppers hostage at the kosher store. Elite police later shot him dead as they stormed the building.

The four victims of the Paris Hyper Cacher attack, from left to right: Yoav Hattab, Yohan Cohen, Francois-Michel Saada, Philippe Braham. (Courtesy)

He had killed a policewoman in the Montrouge suburb south of Paris the night before, when authorities think he may have initially been targeting a nearby Jewish school.

The three French gunmen who carried out a series of deadly attacks in Paris starting on January 7, 2015, killing 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices and ending with two separate sieges in and around Paris on January 9 that killed four hostages. (Photo credit: French police handouts)

Coulibaly said he carried out the attack in the name of the Islamic State terror group.

The attack was part of three days of terror in the French capital in January 2015 that began with the raid on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine offices. Two brothers who said they were members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula killed 12 people in that attack.

Signs read ‘Je suis Charlie’ (I am Charlie) near La Defense in Paris before the nation observed a minute of silence on January 8, 2015 for the 12 victims of an attack by armed gunmen on the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris the day before. (AFP/Eric Piermont)

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