ALGIERS
The Algerian authorities turned down a French request to allow for the burial of Cherif and Said Kouachi – who are suspected of carrying out a deadly attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – on Algerian soil, a local newspaper reported Saturday.
"The French government submitted a request to the Algerian authorities to allow the bodies of Cherif and Said Kouachi to be buried in Algeria," privately-owned Ennahar newspaper said on Saturday.
"The request was submitted through the official channels and was met with swift and firm rejection from the Algerian authorities, as the Kouachi brothers do not carry the Algerian nationality," the newspaper quoted an unnamed "informed source" as saying.
The newspaper added that France's desire to bury the bodies of the Kouachi brothers, who are of Algerian descent, in Algeria was an attempt to "get rid of a ticking time bomb," that is bound to cause a "security headache" even after the death of the perpetrators of the armed attack on Charlie Hebdo.
Twelve people were killed on Jan. 7 when masked gunmen, believed to be the Kouachi brothers, attacked the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine known for printing offensive material, including derogatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Said and Cherif Kouachi, two brothers and the suspected perpetrators, were killed by police on Friday in a warehouse in Dammartin-en-Goele, a small town north of Paris.
Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra had said that the Kouachi brothers "have never set foot in Algeria."
