Turkish official: Female suspect entered Turkey 02:10
Story highlights
- Hayat Boumeddiene, alleged accomplice of Amedy Coulibaly, entered Turkey, source says
- Police killed Coulibaly in standoff, hostage-taking at Paris market
- Le Monde says photos show Boumeddiene in a niqab and holding a weapon in 2010
(CNN)Hayat
Boumeddiene seemed kind and polite, always wearing a veil and often
motoring around on a scooter with her romantic partner Amedy Coulibaly, a
neighbor in a southern Paris suburb recalls.
Now
the 26-year-old Boumeddiene is the subject of an international dragnet
after Coulibaly -- said to be linked to two brothers suspected in
Wednesday's massacre at the offices of a Parisian satirical magazine
Charlie Hebdo -- allegedly killed hostages at a Paris kosher supermarket Friday before police fatally shot him.
Police
earlier named Boumeddiene and Coulibaly as suspects in Thursday's
slaying of a female police officer in the southern suburb of Montrouge.
The French newspaper Le Monde says this is a 2010 photo of Hayat Boumeddiene.
With Coulibaly dead, and Charlie Hebdo suspects Cherif and Said Kouachi killed Friday at a separate standoff north of Paris,
Boumeddiene is the last prime, publicly identified suspect that police
are seeking in connection with France's recent wave of terror attacks.
A French source close to the nation's security services said Boumeddiene is thought no longer to be in France.
She
entered Turkey on January 2, a Turkish prime ministry source told CNN
on Saturday. Turkish police have a track of her movements, said the
source.
Boumeddiene is thought to have left for Turkey "of course to reach Syria," according to the French source.
The revelations raise questions of whether Boumeddiene was even in France during this week's attacks.
Earlier,
French police union spokesman Pascal Disant said Boumeddiene may have
left the market siege and eluded capture as hostages were freed. So far,
no witness has publicly said she was there.
But
Disant said that the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly were part of the
same jihadist groups, and Paris prosecutor Francois Molins indicated
Boumedienne and Cherif Kouachi's wife also were well-connected, saying
they exchanged 500 phone calls in 2014.
Who is Boumeddiene?
Armed
investigators on Saturday milled around the apartment shared by
Coulibaly and Boumeddiene in Fontenau aux Roses, south of Paris.
Who is female terrorist suspect on the run? 01:32
Both of their names still were on a letterbox of the lobby of the building, situated across from a library.
They
lived in an apartment above an Indian restaurant for about five years,
according to a neighbor who spoke on condition of anonymity. The
neighbor said the couple were always polite, and she often saw them
drive around the neighborhood together on a scooter.
As
far as the neighbor could remember, Boumeddiene always wore a niqab, a
veil that some Islamic women wear to cover all of their head and face
except for the eyes.
The French
newspaper Le Parisien reported that Boumeddiene was one of seven
siblings hailing from Villiers-sur-Marne, France. Her mother died in
1994, and at age 8 or 9 she and some of her other siblings were put into
foster care when her father struggled to raise them alone, Le Parisien
reported.
The paper reported that Boumeddiene "religiously wedded" Coulibaly in 2009. The next year, Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi were involved in a 2010 attempt to free an Algerian serving time for the 1995 subway bombing, a Western intelligence source told CNN.
Coulibaly
was indicted May 22, 2010, and spent time in prison in connection with
the prison break plot. Cherif Kouachi was under investigation for the
same plot, but there was not enough evidence to indict him, the source
said.
Photos published by the French
newspaper Le Monde purport to show Boumeddiene in 2010, wearing a niqab
and an abaya -- a loose garment covering the rest of her body -- and
holding a weapon that appears to be a crossbow in a rural setting.
The French newspaper Le Monde says this is a 2010 photo of Hayat Boumeddiene.
Another photo shows her pointing the weapon at the camera, but her face is obscured by the niqab, with only her eyes exposed.
CNN has not independently confirmed the authenticity of the photos.
In
one of the photos, Boumeddiene in a niqab is posing nearly
cheek-to-cheek with Coulibaly in what the newspaper called a selfie.
The French newspaper Le Monde says this is a 2010 photo of Hayat Boumeddiene and Amedy Coulibaly.
Coulibaly holds a pistol in a firing pose in another photo.
In
another, Boumeddiene is kneeling and readies to fire the crossbow-like
weapon. In that photo, her face and hands are exposed, but her face can
only be seen in profile.
The market standoff
French
authorities say Coulibaly took hostages at the Paris kosher supermarket
on Friday. He demanded the release of the Kouachi brothers, who were
surrounded by police in a print shop northeast of Paris, Disant said.
Police
say a gunman killed four people at that grocery store. Video from
French news media shows police raiding the store, and a man --
apparently Coulibaly -- being shot by police as he rushed out of the
building toward the raiding officers.
Israeli
government sources told CNN that French President François Hollande had
told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that 15 people were
rescued. The four hostages who died were killed by the gunman before
police stormed the market, sources said.
Two police officers were also wounded in the raid, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters.
Hollande said that the market deaths were an "anti-Semitic" act.
The French newspaper Le Monde says this is a 2010 photo of Hayat Boumeddiene.
At almost the same time, the other pair of suspects, Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, were killed in a police operation in Dammartin-en-Goele, near the Charles de Gaulle Airport northeast of Paris.
The Kouachis, who were brothers and the suspects in the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo magazine office, had been cornered at a printing business in the town, according to the mayor of a nearby town.
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