Saïd Kouachi reportedly kissed wife Soumya goodbye then told her he was going to Paris to see younger brother Chérif in Paris

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The wife of the Charlie Hebdo gunman Saïd Kouachi had no idea her husband was a religious extremist or that he planned an attack on the satirical magazine, according to her lawyer.

Hours before Kouachi and his younger brother Chérif stormed into the publication’s office in Paris, leaving 12 people, including two police officers, dead, the gunman kissed his wife, Soumya, goodbye and left their home in the Croix-Rouge area of Reims.

“He gave her a kiss and said he was going to see Chérif in Paris because he was ill. Then he left. It was the last time she saw him or spoke to him because he left his telephone behind,” said lawyer Antoine Flasaquier.

Talking to BFMTV, Flasaquier said the gunman’s family were as shocked as the rest of France by the attacks, hostage taking and sieges last week carried out by the Kouachi brothers and their partner Amedy Coulibaly, which left a total of 20 people, including the three terrorists, dead.

For Saïd Kouachi’s wife, he said, it was also a nightmare.

“She doesn’t understand at all. Today she feels that she lived a lie. She had a normal life with a normal man, who didn’t show any radical views at home. Even after hearing the information, even after the police arrived and she heard what happened she couldn’t believe it.

“I asked her if his religious commitment had evolved and she said he practised Islam, he kept Ramadan, he prayed at the local prayer place, but he didn’t proselytise. At home he was someone normal.”

Flasaquier added that Kouachi’s wife said he did not speak of religion or politics at home.

“He didn’t speak about the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, he made no comment about them or about Daesh over the killing of the journalists. Absolutely nothing at all. He never spoke to his wife of these subjects,” the lawyer said.

Asked if his wife knew of her husband’s reported visit to Yemen in 2011, where he allegedly became a follower of radical Islam, the lawyer said: “She said she was pregnant in 2011 and her husband didn’t go.”

Flasaquier added: “He and his brother grew up in homes and then found themselves on the streets, which created a very strong bond between them, but she (Soumya) said it was unimaginable that he would kill for his brother.”

Asked whether Soumya Kouachi had been party to any contact with the Islamist group from north-east Paris, known as the Buttes-Chaumont network, of which Saïd, 34, and Chérif, 32, were said to be members, the lawyer replied: “She said when they lived in Paris she didn’t meet people who seemed radical, she knows nothing about this world.”

When police arrived at Saïd Kouachi’s home in Reims on Wednesday evening, some hours after the Charlie Hebdo attack, when he and his brother were on the run, it was empty.

“Soumya was at her mother’s home and watching the information at the same time. When she realised the Kouachi family was involved she made contact with the police to see if she could return home to retrieve the medication she is on, then she went to the police station herself.

“The first words she said when she spoke to me was to condemn what happened and say her thoughts were with the families of the victims.

“Today she is on morphine and doesn’t want to open the door of her apartment. She is obviously cooperating with the police.”

The wife of Chérif Kouachi has also condemned her husband’s actions. Izzana Hamyd was reported to have expressed her “indignation and condemnation of the violence” to officers investigating the attacks.

Her lawyer, Christian Sain-Palais, said she had “the same reaction of that of the entire nation … she is stupefied”.

Members of the Kouachi family were taken into custody for 72 hours following the Charlie Hebdo attack. The brothers fled north from Paris into Picardy before being identified by police as they headed back into the French capital on Friday morning.

They took refuge in a printworks at Dammartin-en-Goële, north of Paris, briefly taking the owner of the factory hostage before releasing him.

Lilian Lepère said he had hidden in a kitchen cupboard for eight hours in a printworks where the brothers were hiding.

Lilian Lepère, an employee who hid curled up in a kitchen sink cupboard for eight hours during which he sent text messages to police giving details of the terrorists’ movements gave an extraordinary account of his ordeal to France 2 television.

He said he didn’t dare move in his 70 x 90 x 50cm hiding place in case the Kouachi brothers heard him.

At one point he said: “One of them opened the cupboard right next to mine in which there wasn’t anything interesting. It was 50cm away. I said to myself, they’re going to look in everything …”

“I think he went to drink from the tap. He was drinking right overhead me. I heard the water running above my head because my head was pushed against the sink. I saw his shadow through the tiny crack of light in the door … it was a surreal moment. I thought it was like a film.”

“If they’d dried their hands with the towel, they would have opened the cupboard door and they would have discovered me,” he said.

“My brain stopped thinking, my heart stopped beating, I held my breath and waited. It was all I could do.”

Later, he managed to pull out his mobile phone. “You have to take risks. I was able to get my telephone. I sent messages.” When he heard two loud explosions he was at first afraid the gunmen had laid explosive traps in the building.

The French lower house of parliament, the Assemblée Nationale held a special session on Tuesday afternoon to debate last week’s events.

Claude Bartolone, the speaker of the house, read the names of the 17 victims of last week’s bloody events.

“We are at war against terrorism, against barbarism,” he told MPs.

After a minute’s silence, they sang the national anthem.