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‘Hyper Cacher’ Witness to File Complaint Against State for Not Preventing Attack
by Shiryn Ghermezian
The site of the Hyper Cacher hostage-taking and murders. Photo: Wikipedia.
A young man who survived January’s terrorist attack at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris plans to file a complaint against the French government for not doing enough to prevent the incident, the French outlet BFM TV reported on Thursday.
Amedy Coulibaly was the suspect in the killing of a police officer a day before he took hostages at a branch of the kosher supermarket chain in Paris. A man named David told BFM TV he finds the state at “fault” for not releasing a photo of the gunman prior to the attack.
David believes authorities waited too long to release information on and a photo of Coulibaly, who killed four hostages before being shot and killed by authorities during the supermarket siege on Jan. 9. David said the slaughter could have been averted if a “wanted” poster had been circulated. He intends to sue for millions of euros in damages, according to BFM TV.
“[The authorities] identified him 24 hours earlier, they should have publicized it. I don’t know if it could have changed something, but maybe 5 minutes before (the taking of hostages in the supermarket) someone would have seen him arrive by car,” David told the news outlet. “That’s what happened for the Kouachi brothers [behind the Charlie Hebdo attack]. They were seen at a gas station and this allowed somehow to locate them. It could have been the same for Coulibaly.”
David had just arrived by car at the kosher supermarket on the day of the attack when he saw an armed Coulibaly enter the store and open fire, according to BFM TV. He fled before police arrived at the scene. Authorities later asked him to identify the attacker, showing him a photo of Coulibaly.
David’s lawyer, Axel Metzker, said: “When you have a criminal record, the course of Amedy Coulibaly and antisemitic premeditation of Kouachi brothers, doing nothing is an administrative fault. Being that the government is in charge of the security of the citizens, it’s the government’s full responsibility.”
Authorities argued that they were tracking Coulibaly but did not release information about the terrorist to the public earlier so as not to lose the element of surprise in nabbing him, BFM TV reported.
