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Charlie Hebdo attack



Profiles: key suspects in Paris attacks









Background of the people suspected of being part of a terror cell involved in the Charlie Hebdo siege














French police mobilise after reports of the hostage situation at Port de Vincennes in Paris. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images




Angelique Chrisafis in Paris


Friday 9 January 2015 13.12 EST







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Chérif Kouachi, 32
, from Paris



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Chérif Kouachi.
Photograph: Getty Images


The younger of the two brothers suspected of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo attack who are thought to have been killed at the denouement of the hostage-taking in Dammartin-en-Goële. A French national, he was born on 29 November 1982 in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, one of five children of Algerian-born immigrants. Following the death of his parents, he grew up in care homes in Rennes in Brittany from the age of 12, where he trained for a sports education qualification.
After moving back to Paris he lived in the 19th arrondissement in the north of the city, working as a pizza delivery driver. Video footage from 2004 shows him in a backwards baseball cap rapping and dancing. In 2005, he had appeared in a French TV documentary on Islamist extremism, described as a “fan of rap music more inclined to hang out with pretty young girls than to attend the mosque”. He described becoming radicalised, saying: “It’s written in the texts that it’s good to die as a martyr.”
By 2005, he had become involved in a cell funnelling young men from working-class areas of the 19th arrondissement of Paris and sending jihadists to fight in Iraq. It was known as the Buttes Chaumont cell after the picturesque park in northern Paris where Kouachi was said to be among those who jogged to keep fit as part of their preparations.
He was stopped in 2005 on his way to take a flight to the Middle East as part of that cell. After his police interview, he said he was relieved to have been stopped as he hadn’t wanted to leave but was afraid to have been seen to renege on his commitment or to be seen as a coward. One lawyer involved in the case told French media that at the time he seemed to have found a kind of family, a cause in life. In 2008, he was convicted on terrorism charges for his links to the cell and sentenced to 18 months in prison. While in prison, he was said to have met a mentor, Djamel Beghal, convicted for a plot to attack the US embassy in Paris.
After he was released from prison he kept a low profile, married, and from 2009 worked in a supermarket’s fish section in a suburb of Paris.
In 2010, he was arrested as part of an alleged plot to free an Algerian Islamist, Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 for a bombing at the Musee d’Orsay train station in Paris in October 1995 that left around 30 injured. Le Monde reported that transcripts it had obtained showed how Kouachi maintained total silence during police questioning in a manner that seemed to suggest training in how to deal with police interrogation. Kouachi was ultimately released with no charges brought against him.
Saïd Kouachi, 34



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Saïd Kouachi.
Photograph: French Police/EPA


The elder of the two Kouachi brothers reported to have been killed on Friday was unemployed and had been living in a tower block in Reims in the Champagne region of north-east France. In the years up to 2005, he lived with his brother in the 19th arrondissement of Paris where they had attended the same mosque and moved in circles linked to the Buttes Chaumont cell. Unlike his brother, he was not convicted on terrorism charges linked to that cell.
A Yemeni security official told Associated Press that Saïd was in Yemen for a period of several months until 2012 and was suspected of having fought for al-Qaida there. One official said Saïd was probably among a group of foreigners deported from Yemen in 2012. Both brothers were on US and UK no-fly lists.
Worshippers at the mosque in Reims attended by Kouachi described him to Libération as a “solitary” man who “kept to himself” and was often late for prayers. Neighbours in his block of flats described him as having a wife and family, saying the only noise they heard from his flat was the sound of two young children.
Amédy Coulibaly, 32
, from Juvisy-sur-Orge, in Essonne, outside Paris



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Terror suspect Amedy Coulibaly.
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images


The gunman who held hostages in a kosher grocery shop on the eastern edge of Paris was killed in a shootout late on Friday afternoon. Coulibaly was also suspected of having killed a French police officer in a shootout in the south of Paris on Thursday morning, less than 24 hours after the Charlie Hebdo attack.
Coulibaly was the only boy in a family of 10, according to Libération, which reported that people who knew him had described a happy childhood and average school record. He was said to have changed at around the age of 17 because of people he associated with.
While still a teenager, he became involved in crime and reportedly accrued several convictions for armed robbery from 2001 when he was still a minor. The news weekly L’Obs reported that he had met Chérif Kouachi, one of the brothers suspected of the magazine attack, between 2005 and 2006 when they were both in Fleury-Mérogis prison, south of Paris, known for its overcrowding. French media reported that Coulibaly had converted to Islam and become radicalised in prison.
After an initial spell in prison for armed robbery, he was reported to have begun dealing drugs and served another sentence. After that, with training as a television-fitter, he settled in Grigny in Essonne, around 20km south-east of Paris.
At one point, he worked for Coca Cola just outside Paris. While there, he was apparently interviewed by French newspaper Le Parisien ahead of a planned encounter with the then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. An article dated 15 July 2009, a picture of which was tweeted by a member of the newspaper’s staff on Friday, says Coulibaly was due to meet Sarkozy as part of an effort by the Elysée to support companies committed to employing young people.
“I’m really pleased. I don’t know what I’ll say to him. I guess I’ll start with hello. Hopefully the president can help me get a job,” Coulibaly was quoted as saying. The Guardian was unable to verify independently whether the man named in the article was the same man involved in the hostage-taking.
The Parisien article made no reference to Coulibaly’s radical links or his criminal record – he had just left prison not long before. The French media raised the question on Friday as to whether the Elysée security services were aware of that criminal record before the supposed meeting.
He was arrested by counter-terrorism police in 2010 on suspicion of having taken part in athe plot to aid the prison escape of Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem. During searches of his home, police found Kalashnikov ammunition. He received a prison sentence and is reported to have been released from prison just over a year ago.
Libération cited an expert psychiatric report as part of a court judgment which found “no pathology” but an “immature and psychopathic personality”. An expert psychologist had pointed to “his poor powers of introspection” and the “rudimentary” nature of the motivation of his actions, as well as a sense of morality which was “lacking” and a wish to be “all powerful”.
Le Monde reported that Coulibaly and Kouachi had shared a mentor in the radical figure Djamel Beghal.
Police are now searching for Coulibaly’s live-in partner, Hayat Boumedienne.
Hayat Boumedienne, 26



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Terror suspect Hayat Boumeddiene.
Photograph: Getty Images


Police released a photo of Boumedienne after the kosher grocery holdup at Porte de Vincennes. Le Monde reported that she had been in a relationship with Coulibaly since 2010 and had met him outside prison last spring when he was released after a four-year sentence. Coulibaly had been living with Boumedienne at her home since he left prison.
Boumedienne was interviewed by counter-terrorism police in 2010. Le Monde reported she had told police that during a visit to Beghal in Murat, in the Cantal countryside in central France, they had practised firing crossbows.
On Friday night her whereabouts remained unknown.



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Cherif Kouachi during 2008 terror trial: 'I've been set up' - video

File footage of one of the Paris gunmen, Cherif Kouachi, arriving at court in 2008 on charges of helping to funnel fighters to Iraq's insurgency



Published: 13 Jan 2015




Cherif Kouachi during 2008 terror trial: 'I've been set up' - video












Analysis Charlie Hebdo attackers: born, raised and radicalised in Paris

The radicalisation of the Kouachi brothers began in a picturesque park in the capital while Amédy Coulibaly took the first steps towards terrorism in prison, but what the three had in common was growing up on the margins of French society



Published: 12 Jan 2015




Charlie Hebdo attackers: born, raised and radicalised in Paris












Paris shootings: investigation launched into where gunmen got GoPro cameras

Officials try to pinpoint when and where cameras found in possession of Kouachi brothers and Amédy Coulibaly were obtained



Published: 12 Jan 2015




Paris shootings: investigation launched into where gunmen got GoPro cameras












Paris attacks: 10,000 troops deployed as France hunts for accomplices

Mobilisation of 10,000 troops to guard potentially vulnerable locations comes as prime minister warns that ‘threat still present’



Published: 12 Jan 2015




Paris attacks: 10,000 troops deployed as France hunts for accomplices














Paris shootings: Jewish school ‘likely target’ of gunman Coulibaly




Published: 12 Jan 2015




Paris shootings: Jewish school ‘likely target’ of gunman Coulibaly








Analysis Mentor of Charlie Hebdo gunmen has been UK-based




Published: 11 Jan 2015




Mentor of Charlie Hebdo gunmen has been UK-based








Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly declared allegiance to Isis




Published: 11 Jan 2015




Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly declared allegiance to Isis








Charlie Hebdo: a letter to my British friends

Olivier Tonneau




Published: 13 Jan 2015




Charlie Hebdo: a letter to my British friends
















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