Charlie Hebdo suspect was in class at time of shooting, alleged schoolmates claim on Twitter

By Fusion Staff | January 8, 2015 | 10:39pm

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Twitter users claiming to be classmates of one of the three individuals identified by French authorities as a suspect in the deadly attack on French satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” say Hamyd Mourad, 18, was in class during the shooting spree that left 12 people dead.

On Wednesday, Mourad turned himself in to police in Charleville-Mézière, a city less than 150 miles northeast of Paris. Mourad has not been charged with a crime, according to the BBC.

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Now multiple individuals claiming to be Mourad’s classmates say he couldn’t have been at the shooting because he was in class with them at the time. The self-professed classmates are tagging their tweets with the hashtag #MouradHamydInnocent. By Wednesday evening, the hashtag was trending in France.

“He’s in my high school. I saw that smile this morning.”

https://twitter.com/_Wissem_Sankha/status/552964002876502017

“What is this madness? ‘Mourad Hamyd’ was with me this morning.”

https://twitter.com/AnyceDz/status/552936386941448194

“He’s in my [graduating] class and he was in school today.”

https://twitter.com/babydroma/status/552950916845166593

“He wasn’t in history but he was in philosophy.”

https://twitter.com/babydroma/status/553058627821793280

“He was in class all morning!”

Police have not commented on the veracity of those claims. It was initially reported that police found Mourad’s ID car inside the getaway vehicle, but that version was later retracted.

The two main shooting suspects, brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, are still are large.

Fidel Martinez is an editor at Fusion.net. He’s also a Texas native and a lifelong El Tri fan.