The two brothers suspected of carrying out the massacre in the offices of Charlie Hebdo have a history of dead-end jobs, petty crime and a liking for rap music. What is known about their background suggests they fit the classic profile of radical jihadists.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his
elder brother Said, 34, were born in the 10th arrondissement in Paris to
parents of Algerian origin. While less is known about Said Kouachi, the French
authorities have been aware of Cherif's radical sympathies for at least a
decade.
In their early twenties, the
brothers settled in the 19th arrondissement where Cherif worked variously as a
pizza delivery driver and a shop assistant. At the time, his life was not
dominated by Muslim strictures: he listened to rap music, smoked pot and drank
beer. In 2005, Cherif appeared on French television as an aspiring rap artist.
By this time, he had begun
attending Dawa mosque where he fell under the influence of a radical preacher,
Farid Benyettou. This seems to have been the turning point in Cherif's life:
from then onwards, his lifestyle changed to conform to the strictest
interpretations of Islam.
Benyettou organised a network to
send volunteers to fight in Iraq. Cherif soon agreed to go. In 2005, he planned
to fly to Damascus in Syria from where he would have been smuggled over the
border into Iraq. But the plan went wrong and Cherif was arrested while on his
way to the airport.
When he stood trial, his lawyer
sought to present him as a bemused and simple figure who was simply looking for
excitement. "My client was rather pleased to be arrested by police instead
of seeing his project through," said the lawyer.
This argument appears to have
convinced the court because, at the conclusion of his trial in 2008, Cherif
received a relatively light three-year prison sentence. In practise, that meant
he was released almost immediately owing to the fact that he had already spent
almost three years on remand.
Cherif, who sometimes went by
the nom de guerre "Abu Issen", became known to the authorities again
in 2010 when he was implicated in a plot to spring from prison one of the
terrorists convicted of bombing the Paris Metro in 1995. Cherif spent about
four months in custody or under arrest, but was never formally charged. For the
first time, his elder brother, Said, was also mentioned in police reports,
suggesting that he had been radicalised by this time.
After that incident, both
brothers kept a low profile. Said Kouachi left Paris and moved to the eastern
city of Reims, where neighbours say that he had a wife and two children aged
four and nine. The family lived in a small two bedroom apartment on the first
floor of a tower block above a row of shops in the run down Croix Rouge
district.
The local community is a diverse
mix of students and migrants living in social housing. The area has a
reputation for crime and drug-dealing. But there was no evidence of Said being
involved in any wrongdoing.
One female neighbour, who lived
on the same floor as Said, said she was "shocked" by what he is
supected of doing in Paris, adding: "He was quiet. He lived here with his
wife and two children. He wore traditional Muslim dress like many people and
his wife wore the hijab. I do not know if he was working, but he would often
leave the flat at 9am and get into a car that would wait for him out front. He
was pleasant and was never any trouble."
The neighbour said she had never
seen the person who picked Said up in the car, but she thought his brother,
Cherif, may have been a regular visitor.
A shop assistant in the
convenience store underneath the block where Said lived said: "I would
describe him as a serious person. He would walk with his head down but he was not
unfriendly, just private."
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