Classmates of an 18-year-old suspect in the deadly shooting in a Paris newspaper office reportedly claim he is innocent.

Mourad Hamyd surrendered to French authorities late Wednesday night, but new reports suggest he only wanted to tell police that he had a solid alibi: He was in school during the attack earlier that day, according to his friends.

Masked terrorists shot and killed 12 people in an attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper at about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.



Twitter users, identifying themselves as Hamyd’s classmates, say that he was in school all morning.

One teen girl, with the Twitter handle @babydroma, wrote, “Please, he was in [class] all morning, he’s in my class.” The teen clarified that she is not friends with Hamyd and has only spoken to him about five times.



Il est dans mon lycée je l'ai vu ce matin grave souriant comme d'hab , il ferait jamais sa lui .Soutenez le svp #MouradHamydInnocent c ouf — #MouradHamydInnocent (@_Wissem_Sankha) January 7, 2015

#MouradHamydInnocentSVP il était en cours toute la matinée, il est dans ma classe #RT — vicomte crew (@babydroma) January 7, 2015

These caused #MouradHamydInnocent to start trending on Twitter. Many people around the globe using the hashtag drew attention to what the classmates were saying and counterbalance what they saw as a rush to judgment.



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Interesting that #MouradHamydInnocent is trending, started by classmates who say suspect Mourad was in class at time of #CharlieHebdo attack — Darshna Soni (@darshnasoni) January 8, 2015

Tragedy is no justification for irresponsibility #MouradHamydInnocent — Rebecca Enonchong (@africatechie) January 8, 2015

Some suspected Hamyd of driving a getaway car for two other masked men after they found an identification card in the shooters’ abandoned vehicle, International Business Times reported.



Several people suggested that the ID card may have been planted in the vehicle as a decoy to buy the actual terrorists some time in their escape.

RT @stevehillage: Who thinks the ID Cards in the car were a decoy? #MouradHamydInnocent — Shatha Al Maskiry (@shathamaskiry) January 8, 2015

Police sources told Agence France-Presse that Hamyd turned himself in after seeing his name “circulating on social media.”

Hamyd recently graduated from a school in his hometown of Charleville-Mézières in northern France, according to the Independent. Police say he is being held without charges.

Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, 32 and 34, have been identified as the other suspects in the attack.