Both Charlie Hebdo Gunmen are Buried in France


The two brothers who gunned down 12 people in the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris have been buried in secret, unmarked graves in France.

French authorities said that Cherif Kouachi was buried just before midnight Saturday in a cemetery in the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers, even as his family was kept away. The gravesite was not marked so that it does not become "a pilgrimage site" for Islamists.

His older brother Said was secretly buried a day earlier in the northeastern city of Reims.

France expedites citizenship for Malian hero
Meanwhile, France says it is granting expedited citizenship to Lassana Bathily, the 24-year-old Muslim from Mali who hid customers in a basement refrigerator before escaping to alert police about the attack on a kosher grocery story in Paris that followed the assault at the Charlie Hebdo offices.
Bathily told VOA's Bambara service Saturday that French President Francois Hollande called him and promised to give him citizenship.

The grocery store worker said his actions had "nothing to do with faith," adding that the customers were "innocent" people who "had not done anything."

Bathily has been hailed as a hero for his actions during the terrorist attack.

The gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, who identified with Islamist extremists, attacked the store during a three-day terror spree in Paris in which 17 people were killed.

The hero and the gunman were both black French speakers of Malian origin, causing some confusion when Bathily left the store to get help.

He was handcuffed for 90 minutes by police until people who knew him confirmed he was not the attacker. Bathily drew a map of the store for police. After four years of working there and praying within its walls during his shifts, he thoroughly knew the place.
Bathily told VOA "Even if I'm being called a hero, I'm not going to change."

Bathily applied for citizenship in 2014 after living in France for eight years. The Interior Ministry says his paperwork has been expedited and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will preside over Bathily's naturalization Tuesday.

Europe remains on edge after Belgian police killed two terror suspects Thursday linked to a plot to kill Belgian police officers.
Greek authorities sought to link four terror suspects it had arrested to the Belgian incident in Verviers.  But the Belgian prosecutor's office said Sunday that after examining the Greek suspects' DNA, there was no connection.

Belgium sent military troops into its streets Saturday for the first time in 35 years, in a push to tighten security.  A Belgian defense official, Lieutenant General Mark Compernol, said Jewish institutions and government buildings are being secured in Brussels and Antwerp.

"What is happening at the moment is that in Antwerp several clusters [quarters], it is very difficult to say precisely this place or that place, but these are clusters, quarters, namely where there are Jewish neighborhoods with Jewish institutions," he said.  

And in Brussels at this moment there are dozens of places that are secured by military. For example, the U.S. embassy nearby, the Israeli embassy, the NATO [building], European institutions, a number of Jewish institutions."


SOURCE: VOA News