Two brothers suspected of slaughtering 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo magazine were killed Friday when elite police stormed the building they were holed up in and freed a hostage unhurt, sources close to the investigation said.
As night fell explosions rang out when heavily-armed commandos made their move on a small printing firm in Dammartin-en-Goele northeast of Paris, killing the two massacre suspects. One police officer was injured.
Snipers were deployed on roofs and helicopters swooped low over a small printing business in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, only 12 kilometres (seven miles) from Paris’s main Charles de Gaulle airport.
Ahead of the stand-off, police had already exchanged fire with the pair in a high-speed car chase. Prosecutors told AFP there had been “no casualties reported” in the immediate aftermath of the shoot-out.
Yves Albarello, local MP for the Seine-et-Marne department and member of the crisis cell put in place by authorities, told iTELE the two suspects had let it be known that they wanted to die “as martyrs”.