French prosecutors said Sunday they had linked the attacker of a Jewish supermarket to the shooting of a jogger on the outskirts of Paris just hours after a massacre by two other gunmen at the Charlie Hebdo weekly.
In a statement the Paris prosecutor’s office said there was a link between “the bullet casings found in Fontenay-aux-Roses” where the jogger was shot and injured, and those from a Russian Tokarev pistol used by Amedy Coulibaly in the supermarket attack.
A 32-year-old man was out for an evening run on Wednesday night when he was struck by bullets in an incident which police did not immediately link to the attack hours earlier at the magazine which left 12 people dead.
With injuries to his arm and back, the jogger was still in a critical condition.
“Five bullet casings were found on the scene” prosecutors said, which matched the weapon left by Coulibaly in the supermarket.
Police first suspected Coulibaly — who lives in Fontenay-aux-Roses — of involvement in the jogger shooting when he became the prime suspect in the gunning down the next morning of a policewoman in nearby Montrouge.
The repeat offender who had already served time for trying to break out a convicted jihadist from prison is believed to have killed four hostages during his siege on the Jewish supermarket.
Both Coulibaly and the brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Said and Cherif Kouachi, were killed Friday by police in a dramatic climax to two hostage dramas after three days of terror in the centre of France.
On a video posted online Sunday, a man identifying himself as Coulibaly claims responsibility for the Montrouge attack in the name of the Islamic State group, and says he “coordinated” his actions with the Kouachi brothers.