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Suspect tied to Charlie Hebdo attack sent to France, charged

By The Associated Press
French police officers hold a wreath of flowers before a ceremony outside the kosher grocery where Amedy Coulibaly killed four people, during the third anniversary of the attack, in Paris, Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018. Macron paid respects to the 17 people killed when Islamic extremists attacked satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket three years ago, in the first of several attacks to rock France. (Christian Hartmann/Pool via AP)

PARIS - French authorities have handed preliminary terrorism charges to a long-fugitive extremist suspected of helping organize the deadly 2015 attack on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The Paris prosecutor's office said Peter Cherif was expelled to France after his recent arrest in Djibouti, and was immediately taken into custody and charged upon his arrival Sunday at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport.

He is accused of criminal association with a terrorist enterprise. France's defence minister says he played an “important role in organizing” the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Cherif, also known as Abu Hamza, was a close friend of the two brothers who killed 11 people at Charlie Hebdo's offices and a policeman nearby in Paris.

Cherif had travelled to Iraq and Syria in the early 2000s, and had been on the run from French authorities since 2011.