Terror suspect in Hebdo case extradited from Bulgaria to France
A French man wanted in connection with deadly terrorist attacks in Paris has been extradited from Bulgaria to France, where he is facing charges of links to terrorism, judicial officials say.
Fritz-Joly Joachin was arrested on January 1 on an unrelated warrant while trying to cross from Bulgaria into Turkey.
French police say the 19-year-old was an associate of the Kouachi brothers who killed 12 people in an attack on January 7 against newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Joachin is accused of participating in an organised crime group with a terrorist aim, and links to a network feeding fighters to Syria.
Officials said he arrived in France today and is expected to appear before a judge shortly.
The extradition came as police detained an eight-year-old boy in the south of France who claimed to support the men who attacked Charlie Hebdo, drawing criticism that measures to prevent people from defending terrorism had gone overboard.
Dozens of people have been arrested and accused of defending terrorism since the attacks, with some already drawing years-long prison terms in special expedited court proceedings. But the child from the southern city of Nice appears to be the youngest by far.
The boy said: “The French must be killed. I am with the terrorists. The Muslims did well, and the journalists got what they deserved,” according to Fabienne Lewandowski, deputy director for public security in the Alpes-Maritimes region.
She told BFM television that the child also refused to take part in the national minute of silence for the victims on January 9.
The storming of the newspaper offices left 12 people dead and launched three days of terror in the Paris region that killed a total of 20 people, including the gunmen. The school director brought a complaint against the child on January 21 and the boy was questioned that day with his father and a lawyer present.
“The reason we questioned him was to determine what could have influenced, what could have driven this child to say something like this,” Ms Lewandowski said.
“It’s a shame that it happened in a formal questioning, but given what he said it was necessary to go further than usual.”
Sefen Guez Guez, a lawyer for the family, said the decision to question the child at a police station shows a “collective hysteria”.
“An eight-year-old does not belong in a police station. This is disproportionate and completely unreal,” he said.
