A relative of one of the jihadist killers of journalists at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has been arrested in Bulgaria after trying to get to Syria, a judicial source said Sunday.
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Mourad Hamyd was allegedly detained at the Bulgarian-Turkish border on July 28, while trying to leave Bulgaria and already having crossed onto the Turkish side.
Hamyd Mourad, now 20, was originally thought to be the getaway driver when two Al-Qaeda operatives massacred 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine back in January 2015.
Authorities suspect 20-year-old Mourad Hamyd, who is the brother-in-law of Cherif Kouachi of attempting to join the ranks of Islamic State, the source said, confirming information cited by newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.
His family declared him missing on July 25, 2016. Kouachi carried out the Charlie Hebdo killings with his brother Said.
Hamyd had been questioned by police after the Charlie Hebdo attacks after being falsely identified on social media s one of the attackers.
There was a huge campaign aimed at releasing the student, who was then a teenager, with classmates eventually providing an alibi which led to him being released without charge.
He later told AFP in an interview he was shocked by the killings, which he described as “a disgusting crime”. He added he barely had any contact with Cherif Kouachi.
“He had behavior typical for a foreign fighter and that’s how was identified”, Interior Minister Rumiana Bachvarova told BTV television.
The Bulgarian interior ministry confirmed Hamyd was being held in the country and that a court would rule on Tuesday on his arrest.
Hamyd handed himself into a police station in his home town of Charleville-Mezieres, some 160 miles from Paris, and was held and interrogated for more than two days.
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Mourad, who remained on a terrorist watch list in France, was deported to Bulgaria, where he remains in a detention centre awaiting his return to France.
