Hayat Boumeddiene

Hayat Boumeddiene
Born (1988-06-26) 26 June 1988 (age 36)
Disappeared10 January 2015 (aged 26)
Tell Abyad, Syria
NationalityFrench
Other namesUmm Basir al-Muhajirah
Known forSuspected accomplice of Amedy Coulibaly
Criminal statusWanted by France since January 2015
Spouse(s)Amedy Coulibaly
(2009–2015; his death)

Hayat Boumeddiene (born 26 June 1988),[1] also known by the nom de guerre (kunya) Umm Basir al-Muhajirah (Arabic: أم بصير المهاجرة)[2] is a French-born Algerian Muslim terrorist who participated in the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks. Currently a fugitive, she is wanted as an accomplice of her partner, Amedy Coulibaly, who perpetrated the Montrouge shooting and the Porte de Vincennes siege.[3][4][5][6]

According to Coulibaly's attorney, Boumeddiene was the more radical of the two.[7] She arrived in Turkey five days before the attacks, was described by newspapers as "France's most wanted woman," and was last tracked on 10 January 2015 to the Islamic State-controlled border town of Tell Abyad in Syria.[8][9]

Hasna Aït Boulahcen, who was killed in the later Paris attacks, was a fan of Boumeddiene and lauded her on Facebook.[10][11] While still a fugitive, Boumeddiene was convicted in absentia by a French court in December 2020 and given a 30-year prison sentence.[12]

  1. ^ Gardner, Bill (10 January 2015). "Armed and dangerous: the hunt for Hayat Boumeddiene". Telegraph. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  2. ^ "Dabiq Magazine Issue 7 - From Hypocrisy to Apostasy" (PDF). Clarion Project. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 February 2015. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  3. ^ Video: Hayat Boumeddiene arriving in Turkey, Al Arabiya News
  4. ^ "Paris attacks: Police hunt kosher grocery store gunman's girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene as pictures of her firing crossbows emerge". The Independent. 11 January 2015. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022.
  5. ^ "Attack suspect was known to French authorities". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  6. ^ "The End of the Sieges in France". The New Yorker. 9 January 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  7. ^ Jake Tapper; Katie Hinman; Saskya Vandoorne (12 January 2015). "Female terror suspect more radical than boyfriend?". CNN.
  8. ^ "Islamic State magazine interviews Hayat Boumeddiene". Guardian.com. 12 February 2015. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
  9. ^ Young Woman Killed in Paris Raid Led Troubled Life, The Wall Street Journal. Accessed 9 March 2024.
  10. ^ For Woman Dead in French Police Raid, Unlikely Path to Terror, The New York Times. 21 November 2015.
  11. ^ The French female extremist's curious path to Islamist violence, The Washington Post. Accessed 9 March 2024.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference accompliceconvict was invoked but never defined (see the help page).