SOFIA, Bulgaria
Bulgaria said Monday it had arrested a 28-year-old French citizen accused of kidnapping, “plotting terrorist acts” and of being a suspected relative of the Kouachi brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo last week.
The French citizen of Haitian origin, Fritz Jolie Joaquin, was arrested on Jan. 1, 2015, on a European arrest warrant.
He is accused by his wife of having kidnapped their 3-year-old boy, Abdel Rahman, on Dec. 30, 2014, and sending him abroad without the permission of the other parent.
In a separate European arrest warrant, issued by French prosecutors on Jan. 12, says that Joaquin is accused of “conspiracy and plotting terrorist acts.”
He is suspected to be a relative of Cherif and Said Kouachi, who killed 12 people at the Paris headquarters of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7. The Kouchi brothers were killed by French police two days later following a hostage crisis.
Bulgaria's national TV station said that Joaquin was arrested at the Captain Andrevo customs gate, while trying to cross the border and enter Turkey. The suspect’s final destination is understood to have been Syria.
The national broadcaster also said that Bulgarian authorities had already begun the process of extraditing the suspect to France, with the final decision to be taken on Jan. 16, by the regional court in Haskovo city, southern Bulgaria.
