France hunts female suspect as more attacks feared

PARIS — French police on Saturday were hunting the widow of one of the slain suspects in a wave of attacks around Paris, considered dangerous herself and the possible key to helping authorities dismantle what could be a terrorist network.

Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, wed Amedy Coulibaly in an Islamic religious ceremony in July 2009 — a union not recognized by French law. Coulibaly was killed by police Friday, and a circular distributed by French police said Boumeddiene should be considered dangerous and potentially armed.

Boumeddiene has never been convicted of a crime, officials said, but judicial records obtained by The Associated Press say she was very close to Islamic radicals known to French internal security services, and once posed for a photo in her Islamic veil and holding a crossbow.

The records show that she had also been interrogated by French officials about her reaction to terrorist acts committed by al-Qaida.

"I don't have any opinion," she answered, according to the records, but immediately added that innocent people were being killed by the Americans and needed to be defended, and that information provided by the media was suspect.

At dusk Friday, Boumeddiene's 32-year husband was killed by police who stormed a kosher market in eastern Paris and freed the gunman's hostages. French prosecutors said Coulibaly had killed four people at the grocery.

At virtually the same hour near the Charles de Gaulle airport outside the French capital, two brothers suspected of killing 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper on Wednesday died in a shootout with police.

Francois Molins, the Paris public prosecutor, said Friday that the links between Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers became clear to authorities after they discovered Boumeddiene and the female companion of one of the Kouachis had exchanged about 500 phone calls.