French police link terrorist cell to foreign financing

Jane Onyanga-Omara | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Raw: Man tied to France suspects arrested Bulgarian authorities on Tuesday confirmed they had arrested a French citizen believed to have links to one of the brothers who carried out the Paris attacks. (Jan. 13)

Investigations into the bloody attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hedbo suggest it was financed from abroad, was hatched as long as three years ago and involved a terrorist cell of as many as 10 people, many of whom are still at large.

Christophe Crepin, a French police union representative, says several people are being sought in relation to the "substantial" financing of the cell, that included the three gunmen involved in a three-day reign of terror last week in France.

CBS News, quoting unidentified sources, reported Tuesday that Said Kouachi, one of two gunmen who attacked Charlie Hebdo, returned from Yemen in 2011 with $20,000 from the terrorist group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to finance the operation.

In Berlin, meanwhile, several thousand German Muslims held a vigil Tuesday night to show support for the victims of the Paris attacks and oppose a growing anti-Islam movement in the country. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck took part in the rally near Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and the French embassy.,

"I come from Iraq and we wanted to show our faces here," said Susan Ahmed, 59. "People need to see that we are not Islamists. We (Muslims) are also the victims of terror. And especially those in Iraq."



Earlier in the day, at police headquarters in Paris, French President Francois Hollande paid tribute to the three officers killed in the attacks, placing Legion of Honor medals on their caskets. In Jerusalem, funerals were held for for the four Jewish victims of the attack Friday on a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Watch: French terror suspect in Turkish airport | USA NOW Surveillance video captured Paris terror suspect Hayat Boumeddiene in a Turkish airport. Shannon Rae Green reports.

Seventeen people were killed during the terrorist attacks that began Wednesday with an assault on the newspaper that left 12 people dead. Said Kouachi, 34, and his brother Chérif Kouachi, 32, were fatally shot two days later by security forces in a town north of Paris.

The third gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, 32, was accused of killing a police woman last week and of taking over a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris on Friday, killing four people. He was also shot and killed by security forces on Friday.

As investigators attempt to piece together the terrorist cell behind the attacks, police officials tell the Associated Press that authorities are searching the Paris area for the Mini Cooper registered to Hayat Boumediene, Coulibaly's widow. Turkish officials say she is now in Syria.

One of the French police officials said the cell consisted of about 10 members, and that "five or six could still be at large," but he did not provide their names. The other official said the cell was made up of about eight people and included Boumediene.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said "serious and very high risks remain" and warned French citizens not to let down their guard. He called for new surveillance of imprisoned radicals and told the Interior minister to come up with new security proposals shortly.

One of the police officials also said Coulibaly apparently set off a car bomb Thursday in the town of Villejuif, but no one was injured and it did not receive significant media attention at the time.

In addition, video has emerged of Coulibaly explaining how the attacks in Paris would unfold. French police want to find the person or persons who shot and posted the video, which was edited after Friday's attacks.

Meanwhile, Bulgarian authorities said Tuesday they have arrested a French citizen believed to have links to Chérif Kouachi.

Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, was detained under two European arrest warrants, one citing his alleged links to a terrorist organization, and a second for allegedly kidnapping his 3-year-old son and smuggling him out of the country, said Darina Slavova, regional prosecutor of the southern province of Haskovo.

Joachin, a French citizen of Haitian origin, "was in contact several times" with Chérif Kouachi, Slavova told news agency AFP. She said the contact took place before Joachin left France on Dec. 30, a week before the Charlie Hebdo attack. Slavova said she expects Joachin to be extradited to France to face charges, according to ABC.

Crepin, the French police union official, said the people in the Islamic extremist cell involved in the Charlie Hebdo attack had mixed allegiances, with little sense of loyalty to individual jihadi groups.

On Friday morning, only hours before his death, Coulibaly told BFM television that he had coordinated his attacks with the Kouachi brothers. He claimed to be a member of Islamic State, the extremist organization that has taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq. Chérif Kouachi, in a separate interview that morning, said the attack was planned and financed by al-Qaeda in Yemen.

The Charlie Hebdo attackers had shouted that their mission was to avenge the newspaper's publication of what they said were denigrating cartoons about Islam.

Ties among the three attackers themselves date to at least 2005, when Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi were jailed together.

Contributing: Angela Waters in Berlin; William M. Welch and Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY; Associated Press