2 charged over links to Paris gunman after probe finds 100s of texts, DNA evidence

FILE - This Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2015, file picture shows a woman lighting a candle outside the kosher grocery where Amedy Coulibaly killed four people in a terror attack, in Paris, France. Two men with ties to one of the three gunmen who terrorized Paris were handed preliminary terrorism charges on Friday, the Paris prosecutor said, describing hundreds of texts, regular meetings, and DNA recovered from a stun gun among belongings inside a bloodied kosher supermarket. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - This Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015 file photo shows a police officer talking to a Jewish person outside the kosher grocery where Amedy Coulibaly killed four people earlier in a terror attack, in Paris, France. Two men with ties to one of the three gunmen who terrorized Paris were handed preliminary terrorism charges on Friday, the Paris prosecutor said, describing hundreds of texts, regular meetings, and DNA recovered from a stun gun among belongings inside a bloodied kosher supermarket. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File) (The Associated Press)

PARIS – The Paris prosecutor says two men face preliminary terrorism charges after hundreds of texts and DNA evidence linked them to the Paris gunman who killed four people at a kosher supermarket and a policewoman.

The two men were handed preliminary charges Friday for participation in a terrorist group with the intent to commit crime.

Prosecutors said Amar R., a jailhouse acquaintance of Amedy Coulibaly, had exchanged more than 600 texts with Coulibaly over five months and met him on Jan. 5 and 6, just before the killings at the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper and the Hypercacher supermarket that left 20 people dead, including all three gunmen.

DNA from the second man, identified as Said M., was recovered from a stun gun in Coulibaly's belongings at the market, the prosecutor said.