DHAKA: The youngest of the three suspects in the deadly Paris attack Wednesday on the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has surrendered to police in Charleville-Meziere, sources said.
“Hamyd Mourad handed himself in to police… on Wednesday at 11:00 pm (2200 GMT) after seeing his name circulating on social media,” the source told . “He has been arrested and taken into custody,” another source confirmed.
Late Wednesday night, authorities said an anti-terror raid was under way in the northeastern city of Reims. According to ITele, a family member of Mourad was arrested in the operation.
Mourad along with two others were suspected of methodically killing 12 people Wednesday, including the editor of Charlie Hebdo, before escaping in a car, in France’s deadliest postwar terrorist attack.
Mourad is said to have been the getaway driver.
Said Kouachi, 34, Cherif Kouachi, 32 — brothers and Paris-born French nationals of Algerian descent — were still at large.
The younger Kouachi had been active between the years 2003 and 2005 in rallies urging French Muslims to join jihadists in Iraq in battle against the US army, Metronews reported. In 2008, he was convicted of terrorism charges and sentenced to three years and 18 months suspended sentence.
The suspects’ ID cards were found in an abandoned vehicle near the scene of the attack, according to Ynet.
Eight journalists, a guest and two police officers were killed, said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins.
The two policemen were named as Ahmed Merabet, 42, and Franck Brinsolaro, 49. Brinsolaro was reportedly the police bodyguard of the paper’s editor Stephane Charbonnier, widely known by his pen name Charb, who was killed along with four other cartoonists in the attack; Jean Cabut, the lead cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo with the pen name Cabu, Bernard Velhac, pen name Tignous and Jewish cartoonist Georges Wolinski, pen name Wolinski, Philippe Honoré, pen name Honoré.
Among the dead were also Bernard Maris, an economist who is a contributor to the newspaper and was heard regularly on French radio, Mustapha Ourrad, a copy editor at the paper, Frédéric Boisseau, a maintenance worker, Elsa Cayat, an analyst and columnist and Michel Renaud, a guest and friend of Cabut.
Eleven people were injured in the attack, four of them critically.
Late Wednesday, vigils for the victims were held in cities across the world.
Source: timesofisrael.com
** 12 dead as gunmen storm France satirical magazine
BDST: 0802 HRS, JAN 08, 2015
