Four men for court over Paris attacks

Four men will come before magistrates investigating this month’s terrorist attacks in Paris today and prosecutors expect them to be charged.

The men are aged 22, 25, 26 and 28-years-old, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in an e-mailed statement, which didn’t provide further detail about what they might be charged with.

Five others held as part of the investigation were released overnight, the prosecutor's office said. French police are investigating the attack that claimed 17 lives arrested 12 people in the Paris region on the night of January 15th and in the early hours of the following day. The nine men and three women were questioned on suspicion of providing logistical support to the killers, the Interior Ministry said at the time.

France remains on the highest alert and has deployed 122,000 police and soldiers across the country to protect schools, train stations, cultural buildings and other sensitive sites, the ministry said.

Police said the DNA of one of those arrested was found on a weapon used by Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a police officer in a Paris suburb on January 8th and then murdered four hostages at a kosher grocery store the next day. Traces of another man were found in the car Coulibaly drove to the grocery in Eastern Paris, Europe1 radio reported.

Two other gunmen, the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, stormed into the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7th, killing 12 people. The three self-proclaimed Islamist gunmen were killed in almost-simultaneous assaults by the police on January 9th.

Police are still investigating the degree of coordination between the two attacks.

Bloomberg