by Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Paris
A woman hunted by French police as a suspect in the attacks on a satirical paper and Jewish supermarket in Paris left France several days before the killings and is believed to be in Syria, Turkish and French sources said on Saturday.
After killing the gunmen behind the worst assault in France for decades, French police launched in an intensive search for Hayat Boumeddiene, the 26-year-old partner of one of the attackers, describing her as "armed and dangerous".
But a source familiar with the situation said that Boumeddiene left France last week and traveled to Syria via Turkey. A senior Turkish official corroborated that account, saying she passed through Istanbul on January 2.
A source familiar with the situation said that Boumeddiene left France last week and traveled to Syria via Turkey.
"On January 2, a woman corresponding to her profile and presenting a piece of identity took a flight from Madrid to Istanbul," a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
The source said she was accompanied by a man and had a return ticket for January 9, but never took the flight.
A senior Turkish security official said Paris and Ankara were now cooperating in trying to trace her, but said she arrived in Istanbul without any warning from France.
"After they informed us about her ... we identified her mobile phone signal on Jan 8,” the source said. "We think she is in Syria at the moment but we do not have any evidence about that ... She is most probably not in Turkey," the source said, adding the last signal from her phone was detected on Thursday.
An official police photograph of Boumeddiene shows a young woman with long dark hair hitched back over her ears. French media, however, released photos purporting to be of a fully-veiled Boumeddiene, posing with a cross-bow, in what they said was a 2010 training session in the mountainous Cantal region.
French media described her as one of seven children whose mother died when she was young and whose delivery-man father struggled to keep working while looking after the family. As an adult, she lost her job as a cashier when she converted to Islam and started wearing the niqab.
Le Monde said Boumeddiene wed Amedy Coulibaly in a religious ceremony not recognized by French civil authorities in 2009. The two were questioned by police in 2010 and Coulibaly jailed for his involvement in a botched plot to spring from jail the author of a deadly 1995 attack on the Paris transport system.
A woman hunted by French police as a suspect in the attacks on a satirical paper and Jewish supermarket in Paris left France several days before the killings and is believed to be in Syria, Turkish and French sources said on Saturday.
After killing the gunmen behind the worst assault in France for decades, French police launched in an intensive search for Hayat Boumeddiene, the 26-year-old partner of one of the attackers, describing her as "armed and dangerous".
But a source familiar with the situation said that Boumeddiene left France last week and traveled to Syria via Turkey. A senior Turkish official corroborated that account, saying she passed through Istanbul on January 2.
A source familiar with the situation said that Boumeddiene left France last week and traveled to Syria via Turkey.
"On January 2, a woman corresponding to her profile and presenting a piece of identity took a flight from Madrid to Istanbul," a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
The source said she was accompanied by a man and had a return ticket for January 9, but never took the flight.
A senior Turkish security official said Paris and Ankara were now cooperating in trying to trace her, but said she arrived in Istanbul without any warning from France.
"After they informed us about her ... we identified her mobile phone signal on Jan 8,” the source said. "We think she is in Syria at the moment but we do not have any evidence about that ... She is most probably not in Turkey," the source said, adding the last signal from her phone was detected on Thursday.
An official police photograph of Boumeddiene shows a young woman with long dark hair hitched back over her ears. French media, however, released photos purporting to be of a fully-veiled Boumeddiene, posing with a cross-bow, in what they said was a 2010 training session in the mountainous Cantal region.
French media described her as one of seven children whose mother died when she was young and whose delivery-man father struggled to keep working while looking after the family. As an adult, she lost her job as a cashier when she converted to Islam and started wearing the niqab.
Le Monde said Boumeddiene wed Amedy Coulibaly in a religious ceremony not recognized by French civil authorities in 2009. The two were questioned by police in 2010 and Coulibaly jailed for his involvement in a botched plot to spring from jail the author of a deadly 1995 attack on the Paris transport system.
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