Video footage taken during the massacre at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris shows one of the radical Islamist shooters shooting a policeman at close range, after he begs for his life. That policeman, officials said Thursday, was 42-year-old Ahmed Merabet – himself a Muslim.
Merabet was shot when he and his partner, whose name has not yet been released, were on foot patrol in the 11th arrondissement, the neighborhood where Charlie Hebdo‘s office is located. The assassination occurred after a shootout between the police and the terrorists.
Early Thursday, the youngest suspect in Wednesday’s deadly attack at the Paris office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo turned himself in. Eighteen year-old Hamyd Mourad surrendered himself to police after seeing his name appear in social media in connection with the attack, officials said.
Two other suspects, Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, both in their 30s and relatives of Mourad, are being sought. The three are French citizens whose parents immigrated to France from Algeria.
Thursday has been declared a day of mourning in France, French President Francois Hollande said in a speech Wednesday night.
Calling the attack “cowardly,” Hollande said that “an act of exceptional barbarism has been committed in Paris against a newspaper. It was an act against journalists who had always wanted to show that in France it was possible to defend one’s ideas, and exercise their rights that are guaranteed and protected by the French Republic.The people responsible for this are now hunted men. They will be hunted for as long as it takes. They will be arrested and face justice for their crime."
“Today France is in shock,” said Hollande, “the shock of a multiple assassination, a terrorist attack. That much is clear; Charlie Hebdo had received threats in the past, and was under police protection. We must all stand together at this difficult time. We must show we are a united country. We know how we must react, and our response will be firm, always taking into account that national unity.”