A man who took five people hostage at a Paris supermarket Friday is linked to Wednesday's deadly terror attack at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, police told The New York Times.
The suspect, identified as 32-year-old Amedy Coulibaly, was a friend of brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, the men police believe carried out Wednesday's massacre that left 12 people dead at Charlie Hebdo's offices in Paris, French police told The NY Times.
Authorities also believe Coulibaly was a member of the same jihadist organization as the brothers.
The Kouachi brothers are at the center of another hostage situation developing Friday, where authorities say they barricaded themselves with one hostage inside a printing warehouse in an industrial park near Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Coulibaly, currently holed up at a kosher supermarket near the city's Porte de Vincennes, is also the man police believe killed an officer in a suburb located south of Paris Thursday morning. He has an alleged accomplice, a woman named Hayat Boumeddiene, whom police believe was involved in the officer's murder.
On Friday afternoon, Coulibaly barged into the supermarket with an automatic rifle, open fired and said, "You know who I am," an unnamed official told the Associated Press. At least two people are reportedly dead and several others are wounded.
But France's Interior Ministry said no one was killed, according to The NY Times.
Christophe Tirante, a senior police official, said Coulibaly declared he would not free the hostages until Said and Cherif Kouachi are released.
"This shows that these suspects know each other and are linked," Tirante told The NY Times.
The story is developing.
