REVEALED: POLICE STOPPED WATCHING PARIS KILLERS SIX MONTHS AGO
THE world’s most wanted female terrorist has fled to Syria, it was revealed last night – as police admitted they stopped surveillance on her deadly Parisian cell six months ago because they were deemed ‘low-risk’.
Hayat Boumeddiene, the widow of one of the gunmen who massacred 17 civilians in the French capital – is now thought to be with her murderous Islamic State
allies after fleeing the country. Official sources in Paris said that 24-hour scrutiny of members of her terror cell had been dropped to focus on other targets.
Last night, Boumeddiene, 26, was branded ‘armed and dangerous’ by France’s top policeman Jean-Marc Falcone, who said she was believed to have helped plan the attacks.
As long as five years ago she was pictured in full Islamic dress and using a lethal crossbow in the French countryside where she met jihadi recruiters. She and the three Paris killers were all known to the security services. Yet despite their fanatical hatred of the West and access to weapons, police decided to stop tracking them in July 2014.
Boumeddiene was reported to have flown from Madrid to Istanbul on January 2, crossing the Turkish border into Syria on Thursday.
This was the day after brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, murdered 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It was also the day her husband, Amedy Coulibaly, murdered a female police officer before shooting four hostages at a kosher delicatessen in Eastern Paris. The suggestion is that Boumeddiene knew the attacks were due to take place and fled.
Her husband and the Kouachi brothers were all gunned down by police commandos at the end of two sieges on Friday. Last night, as France remained on high alert, extraordinary stories of courage emerged from those caught up in the deadly attacks:
A heroic customer at the kosher deli grabbed one of Coulibaly’s guns – but paid with his life after the weapon jammed
A Muslim worker at the shop helped Jewish customers hide from the terrorist, in what was hailed as an inspiring act of bravery
A father told how he and his three-year-old son had tried to hide from Coulibaly in the store basement, but was forced to follow the gunman’s orders until police launched their raid, killing the terrorist in a hail of bullets as he ran out of the shop’s doors
A hostage revealed how he bandaged a neck wound suffered by Charlie Hebdo murderer Said Kouachi, after the brothers took shelter at his printing works
Meanwhile, the family of a Muslim police officer shot dead by the brothers described them as ‘madmen’ with no religion.
Up to a million people, including David Cameron and other world leaders, are expected to join a march for peace and unity in Paris today. Counter-terrorism ministers including Home Secretary Theresa May will also meet to discuss the West’s response to the growing threat of Islamist violence.
In London, landmarks including Tower Bridge and Trafalgar Square will display the colours of the French flag to show solidarity.
Security patrols were also being stepped up across London amid increased fears of attacks on Jewish communities. And Scotland Yard is asking travellers returning to Britain from France if they saw ‘any suspicious activity’ while away.
Boumeddiene and her coconspirators were put under phone, internet and physical surveillance at the end of 2011, when Said Kouachi returned from Yemen, where he trained with Al Qaeda. There he met Anwar Al-Awlaki, a terrorist mastermind later killed in a US drone strike.
‘But between that date and the summer of 2014, nothing suggested any connection with a radical Islamist movement,’ said a Paris judicial source. ‘So the surveillance was stopped in order to refocus on other individuals who at that moment presented a higher risk.’