Third body found at site of Paris police raid

A third body has been found in the rubble of an apartment where the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks was killed in a fierce shootout with police, prosecutors said Friday.

Elite police launched a massive assault on the apartment on Wednesday as part of the manhunt for suspects linked to the killing of 129 people in Paris attacks.

During a violent exchange of gunfire, one of the people inside the apartment detonated an explosives vest.

After the raid the body of the suicide bomber was found, as was the bullet-riddled corpse of the man suspected of orchestrating the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

The apartment was severely damaged in the raid and police have now uncovered a third body, a woman, in the rubble.

They also disclosed that a body found in the rubble of the Saint Denis apartment was Abaaoud's female cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen.

Investigators had found the 26-year-old's passport at the scene of the raid, and she was formally identified through her fingerprints..

Police on Thursday raided the home of Aitboulahcen's mother as it emerged the 26-year-old woman had transformed from a party girl who liked wearing cowboy hats to a radical Islamist who adopted the full-faced veil six months ago.

"She was unstable, she created her own bubble. She wasn't looking to study religion, I have never even seen her open a Koran," her brother told AFP.
Source: AFP