France Terror Attack Survivor Sues French Media

Lilian Lepere, a 27-year-old graphic designer, hid in a cupboard under a sink at the printing plant where he worked in Dammartin-en-Goële outside of Paris while Chérif Kouachi and Saïd Kouachi tried to hide there from police, the Daily Mail reported.

Seventeen people were killed in the Islamic extremist attacks around Paris that began with an assault on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and ended with police raids on a printing plant and a kosher supermarket where hostages were being held. Meanwhile, a journalist of TF1 television also reported the information.

Lepere’s sister Cindy confirmed in an interview with France 2 that her brother was probably inside and that the family had stopped phoning him to avoid revealing his whereabouts. “Journalists must think of it”, Antoine Casubolo Ferro, Lepere’s lawyer, told the Associated Press.

The maximum penalty for media that endangers the lives of others by deliberately ignoring security protocols is a year in prison and a €15,000 (£10,565) fine, according to French news network The Local. BFMTV, a French television station, revealed in a broadcast people were hiding in a room in the supermarket while Coulibaly was there. The Paris hostage was released unharmed after the police seized the building.

CSA, the watchdog agency, also reprimanded two stations for broadcasting images of gunmen shooting a policeman, Ahmed Merabet, in the head outside the Charlie Hebdo offices.

RMC Radio is among those accused after French Assembly member Yves Albarello said there was someone hiding inside. Simultaneously, three French television and radio broadcasters (France TF1, France 2 and RMC radio) were transmitting the attack live, saying there may still be employees inside the building that the terrorists were not aware of. However Lepere intended to bring legal action against the television and radio stations he believes put his life in danger.