Amedy Coulibaly (; 27 February 1982 – 9 January 2015) was a Malian-French man who was the prime suspect in the Montrouge shooting, in which

municipal police Municipal police, city police, or local police are law enforcement agencies that are under the control of local government. This includes the municipal government, where it is the smallest administrative subdivision. They receive funding ...

officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe was shot and killed, and was the hostage-taker and gunman in the Hypercacher Kosher Supermarket siege, in which he killed four hostages before being fatally shot by police. He was a close friend of Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, the gunmen in the ''Charlie Hebdo'' shooting, to which Coulibaly's shootings were connected. He said he synchronized his attacks with the Kouachi brothers. Coulibaly had pledged allegiance to the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic ter ...

Early life

Coulibaly was born in Juvisy-sur-Orge, a suburb south-east of Paris, into a

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Ma ...

an Muslim immigrant family. He was the only boy, with nine sisters. He grew up on a housing estate,

La Grande Borne La Grande Borne is a housing estate, in the Essonne département on the southern outskirts of Paris, France. The estate is located in both the communes of Grigny and Viry-Châtillon. The architect Émile Aillaud designed this housing estate. ...

, in Grigny, south of Paris. Starting at the age of 17, he was convicted five times for armed robbery and at least once for drug trafficking. A report by a psychiatric expert prepared for a Parisian court found Coulibaly had an "immature and psychopathic personality" and "poor powers of introspection".

Activities prior to 2015 shootings

In 2004, Coulibaly was sentenced to six years in Fleury-Mérogis Prison for armed bank robbery. There, he met

Chérif Kouachi On 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 a.m. CET local time, two French Muslim terrorists and brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French List of satirical magazines, satirical weekly newspaper ''Charlie H ...

. He is believed to have converted to radical Islam in prison at the same time as Chérif. In prison he also met al-Qaeda recruiter

Djamel Beghal Djamel Beghal (also transliterated as Jamel Beghal and Djamel Begal) ( ar, جمال بغال; born December 2nd 1965 in Bordj Bou Arréridj, Algeria) is an Algerian terrorist convict. He later said that his discovery of Islam in prison changed him. In 2007, he met and began dating

Hayat Boumeddiene Hayat Boumeddiene (born 26 June 1988) is currently being sought by French police as a suspected accomplice of her partner, Amedy Coulibaly, who was the main suspect for the Montrouge shooting, in which municipal police officer Clarissa Jean-Phi ...

. On 5 July 2009, they got married in an Islamic religious ceremony. Boumeddiene's father stood in for her at the marriage service. On 15 July 2009, while involved in an effort promoting youth employment, Coulibaly, along with about 500 others, met with then-President

Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...

. A source stated that Coulibaly "was friends of both of" the Kouachi brothers, and that he had first met Cherif in prison. Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers were known members of the . The name comes from the nearby Parc des Buttes Chaumont, where they often met and performed military-style training exercises with other French-Algerian extremists. Coulibaly is believed to have been radicalised by an Islamic preacher in Paris, and had expressed a desire to fight in either Iraq or Syria. Ten months after his meeting with Sarkozy, in May 2010 police arrested him and searched his apartment. They found ammunition, a crossbow, and letters seeking false official documents. Coulibaly maintained that he was planning to sell the ammunition on the street. In December 2013 he was sentenced to five years in prison for supplying ammunition for a plot to break out from prison radical French-Algerian Islamist Smain Ait Ali Belkacem (who had planned the 1995 Paris Métro and RER bombings), a plot in which the Kouachi brothers were also involved. However, Coulibaly was released early from Villepinte prison outside Paris, in March 2014. He was required to wear an electronic bracelet until May 2014. In October 2014, he and Boumeddiene went to perform the

Hajj The Hajj (; ar, حَجّ '; sometimes also spelled Hadj, Hadji or Haj in English) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried o ...

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow v ...

, the pilgrimage obligatory for every Muslim who is able to do so. A week before the attacks, on 4 January 2015 Coulibaly rented a house in

Gentilly, Val-de-Marne Gentilly () is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is the closest commune to Paris, located from the city center. Name The name Gentilly was recorded for the first time in the 6th century as ''Gentilly'', a royal estate of s ...

, in the southern Paris suburbs. There, after the attacks, police discovered automatic weapons, a grenade launcher, smoke grenades and bombs, handguns, industrial explosives, and flags of the Islamic State. He had pledged allegiance to

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ( ar, أبو بكر البغدادي, ʾAbū Bakr al-Baḡdādī; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai ( ar, إبراهيم عواد إبراهيم علي محمد البدري السامرائي, ʾIb ...

and the

, as he put it, "as soon as the caliphate was declared," which was in the summer of 2014. He stated this, and described how he and the Kouachi brothers had synchronized their attacks and were "a team, in league together," in a video posted on Twitter days after he and the brothers were killed. Text in the video states that Coulibaly had killed a policewoman and "five Jews." The video captions him with the names "Amedy Coulibaly" and "Abou Bassir Abdallah al-Ifriqi". As the video includes news reports of his attack on the kosher supermarket, it was edited by someone after he was killed.

Shootings on 7–9 January 2015

Coulibaly said he synchronized his attacks with the Kouachi brothers. In the shootings, five people were killed and eleven others were wounded. The first shooting was of a jogger who was wounded on the evening of 7 January in

Fontenay-aux-Roses Fontenay-aux-Roses () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. In 1880 a girls school École Normale Supérieure was opened in the town. It was one of the most prestigious of Paris and ...

. Shell casings found at the scene were later linked to the weapon carried by Coulibaly in his kosher supermarket attack. However, the jogger refuted Coulibaly's involvement and recognized Amar Ramdani, a friend of Coulibaly, as the gunman. The second shooting occurred in

Montrouge Montrouge () is a commune in the southern Parisian suburbs, located from the centre of Paris. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe. After a long period of decline, the population has increased again in recent years. ...

on 8 January. Clarissa Jean-Philippe, a policewoman, was killed, and a street sweeper was critically injured. DNA found at the scene was a match to Coulibaly. The third shooting took place at

Porte de Vincennes The Porte de Vincennes () is one of the city gates of Paris (France) situated in the Bel Air neighborhood of the 12th arrondissement. Location The Porte de Vincennes is located where the northeast corner of the 12th arrondissement meets the ...

, east Paris, on 9 January. Coulibaly killed four more people, all Jewish patrons at a Jewish

Hypercacher Hypercacher (; also Hyper Cacher or HyperCacher; translated as "Super Kosher") is a chain of kosher supermarkets in France and Italy. There are branches in and around Paris (Porte de Vincennes, rue de Manin, rue de l'Ourcq, La Villette, rue ...

supermarket at Porte de Vincennes, at the outset of an hours-long siege in which he demanded that the Kouachi brothers be freed. At the outset of that attack, he introduced himself to his hostages, saying: "I am Amedy Coulibaly, Malian and Muslim. I belong to the Islamic State." French commandos stormed the store, and killed Coulibaly. A

Nagant M1895 The Nagant M1895 Revolver is a seven-shot, gas-seal revolver designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Léon Nagant for the Russian Empire. The Nagant M1895 was chambered for a proprietary cartridge, 7.62×38mmR, and featured an unusual "ga ...

revolver was also found in the possession of Coulibaly.

Aftermath

After

refused to accept Coulibaly's body for burial, he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Muslim section of a cemetery in

Thiais Thiais () is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The name Thiais comes from Medieval Latin ''Theodasium'' or ''Theodaxium'', meaning "estate of Theodasius", a Gallo-Roman landowner. The ...

. His wife,

, is currently being sought by French police as a suspected accomplice of Coulibaly, alleged to have helped him commit his attacks. She arrived in Turkey five days before the attacks. She has been described by newspapers as "France's most wanted woman". She was last tracked on 10 January 2015 to the

-controlled border town of Tell Abyad in Syria. In early March 2019, Dorothee Maquere – wife of French jihadist Fabien Clain – claimed that Boumeddiene was killed during the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani due to injuries sustained from an airstrike on her safehouse. In March 2020, a French jihadist woman told a judge that she met Boumeddiene in October 2019 at the Al Howl camp; Boumeddiene was staying under a false identity and managed to escape. French intelligence services think that this piece of information is plausible.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coulibaly, Amedy 1982 births 2015 deaths 21st-century French criminals People from Juvisy-sur-Orge French Islamists French murderers French people of Malian descent People shot dead by law enforcement officers in France January 2015 Île-de-France attacks Antisemitism in France

Early life

Activities prior to 2015 shootings

Shootings on 7–9 January 2015

Aftermath

See also

References