Teen cleared of being ‘third man’ in Charlie Hebdo attack arrested for trying to join ISIS
Hamyd Mourad was questioned by police for two days following the terror attack in January 2015
A TEENAGER who was cleared of being the ‘third man’ in the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in France has now been arrested for allegedly trying to join ISIS.
Hamyd Mourad, 20, was originally thought to have been the getaway driver when two Al-Qaeda operatives massacred 12 people around the Paris offices of the satirical magazine in January 2015.
There was a huge campaign aimed at releasing the student, who was then a teenager, with classmates eventually providing an alibi which led to him being released without charge.
But now – in what appears to be another huge failure by France’s security agencies – Mourad was intercepted in Turkey on July 28 as he tried to join the depraved death cult in Syria.
Mourad, who remained on a terrorist watch list in France, was deported to Bulgaria, where he remains in a detention centre awaiting his return to France.
Paris intelligence sources told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper that material found in Mourad’s backpack, including a phone and laptop computer, made him a clear 'candidate for jihad’.
RELATED STORIES
It added that anti-terrorism prosecutors in Paris had “opened a judicial investigation in order to issue a European arrest warrant for him."
Mourad was the brother-in-law of Cherif Kouachi, who carried out the murders at Charlie Hebdo with his sibling Said Kouachi.
The pair used AK47s to assassinate writers and cartoonists who they accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed, before they were gunned down by police commandos two days later.
In the hours after the attack, Hamyd’s name was released as a prime suspect and a manhunt was launched.
Hamyd handed himself into a police station in his home town of Charleville-Mezieres, some 160 miles from Paris, and was held and interrogated for more than 48 hours.
After being released without charge, Hamyd said: “I was stunned, completely overwhelmed by the events.
“I'm in shock, people said horrible and false things about me on social media even though I am a normal student who lives quietly with his parents.”
The Charleville-Mezieres prosecutor confirmed that Mourad had just finished the first year of a science and technology course at university, had been ‘reported missing’ by his family on July 25.
Many of the terrorists involved in lethal attacks in France and Belgium since the Charlie Hebdo atrocity were on watch lists.
The two ISIS affiliated teenagers who murdered a Roman Catholic priest in Normandy last month had both tried to join the ISIS caliphate by travelling to Turkey before being deported.
Back in France, one was electronically tagged for a few hours a day, but they were otherwise free to do what they wanted.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368