New video appears to show Paris terror suspect in Turkey
Surveillance video from Istanbul airport appears to show Hayat Boumeddiene
Airport security footage shot last week in Istanbul shows the wife of the terrorist behind a supermarket siege in Paris as she likely made her way to Syria just before the events in France, said authorities, who believe she may be one of six members of a terror cell still at large.
A massive, international dragnet is under way to locate 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, the common-law wife and suspected accomplice of Amédy Coulibaly, a militant Islamist who authorities say opened fire inside a kosher supermarket in Paris Friday, killing 4 people before dying in a gun battle with police.
French authorities say Coulibaly, 32, shot and killed a female police officer on Thursday, a day after Al Qaeda-linked terrorist brothers, Said and Chérif Kouachi methodically executed 12 people in an attack on the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Intelligence officials believe the attacks were all coordinated.
Investigators say they believe Boumeddiene helped Coulibaly plan the deadly attack on the Kosher supermarket last week.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday that Boumedienne arrived in Turkey from Madrid on Jan. 2 before crossing into Syria on Jan. 8, the day after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that had angered Muslim extremists by publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed.
She and her traveling companion, a 23-year-old man, toured Istanbul, then left Jan. 4 for a town near the Turkish border, according to a Turkish intelligence official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Her last phone signal was on Jan. 8 from the border town of Akcakale, where she crossed over apparently into Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria, the official said. Their Jan. 9 return plane tickets to Madrid went unused.
Police believe as many as six terror-cell members may still be at large after the Paris attacks, one of whom has been spotted driving a car registered to the widow of one of the slain attackers.
Two French police officials told The Associated Press on Monday that authorities are searching the Paris area for the Mini Cooper car registered to Boumeddiene.
Turkey is a strong backer of Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Al-Assad, whose government views all of its armed opponents as terrorists.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Monday that Turkey had aided terrorists who "shed the blood of Syrians and innocent people worldwide" and called on the international community "to stop Turkey's destructive policy."
Boumeddiene, who is from an Algerian background, was born into a family of seven in Villiers-sur-Marne. Her father was said to be in shock when interviewed Friday by investigators, according to multiple French media reports.
Authorities say Boumeddiene is believed to have been radicalized after meeting Coulibaly in May 2009. The couple reportedly married in a religious ceremony on July 5, 2009.
Boumeddiene and Coulibaly lived in nearby Bagneux, where neighbors described them as quiet and respectful -- despite Coulibaly’s frequent run-ins with the law.
In December, however, the couple disappeared from their suburban home. Police on Sunday raided a Paris-area apartment they believe Coulibaly rented to prepare for the attacks. A search of the apartment reportedly turned up weapons and ISIS flags.
Boumeddiene and the wife of one of the Kouachi brothers exchanged more than 500 phone calls in 2014, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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