Shooting of jogger linked to policewoman’s killer

The shooting of a jogger in a Paris suburb on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo massacre has been linked to the gunman who killed a policewoman and four hostages at a kosher supermarket, a prosecutor has said.

In a statement, the prosecutor said ballistics tests on shell cases from the shooting in Fontenay aux Roses linked them to the automatic weapon at the kosher store stormed two days later. The prosecutor said the jogger was seriously wounded.

Amedy Coulibaly was killed when police stormed the supermarket. That raid took place minutes after security forces killed the brothers who carried out the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

Earlier, video emerged of Coulibaly where he pledges allegiance to the Islamic State and defends the attacks on the satirical newspaper and the Jewish store. Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen has previously said it directed the brothers’ attack on the newspaper to avenge the honour of the Prophet Mohammad.

In the video, Coulibaly can be seen with a gun, exercising and giving speeches in fluent French and broken Arabic in front of an Islamic State emblem“What we are doing is completely legitimate, given what they are doing,” Coulibaly says. “You cannot attack and not expect retribution so you are playing the victim as if you don’t understand what’s happening.”

The SITE Intelligence Group said it had verified the video.

Coulibaly shot a policewoman dead on the outskirts of Paris the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, while the brothers who carried it out were on the run. On Friday, with the brothers cornered inside a printing house near Charles de Gaulle airport, he took over the kosher grocery, demanding freedom for the two.

The video appears to have been filmed over several days. Coulibaly is wearing different clothing in different shots. At one point, he says Charlie Hebdo will be attacked “tomorrow” and that he and the brothers were coordinating. All three men were killed in nearly simultaneous raids by security forces.

Five people detained in connection with the three days of bloodshed in France have been released from custody.

Family members of the attackers have been given preliminary charges, but a prosecutor’s spokeswoman said no one remained in detention over the attacks that left 17 people dead.