PARIS: French magazine Paris Match on Thursday published photos of the bodies of the two brothers behind the bloody January attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, saying the French “have the right” to see them.
The three pictures showed the bodies of Cherif and Said Kouachi lying on the ground after being shot by police on Jan. 9.
Two of the photos were printed in black and white because they were “too hard” to look at in color, Paris Match managing editor Olivier Royant told Europe 1 radio. The third, published in color, showed Cherif Kouachi on the ground covered in blood and surrounded by forensic police.
On Jan. 7, the Kouachis attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo with Kalashnikov assault rifles, killing 12 people, among them several of the newspaper’s leading caricaturists.
In a telephone interview with a French television station as police closed in on them after a two-day manhunt, the brothers claimed they were directed by the Islamist group Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
An accomplice, Amedy Coulibaly, stormed a supermarket in Paris as police surrounded the Kouachi brothers, killing several people and taking others hostage.