ISTANBUL, Turkey — A suspected accomplice of one of the Islamist militants behind last week's attacks in Paris crossed into Syria from Turkey on Thursday, according to Turkey's foreign minister.
Mevlut Cavusoglu told a state-run news agency on Monday that Hayat Boumeddiene flew from Madrid to Turkey on Jan. 2. She stayed at a Istanbul hotel and then crossed into Syria on the same day her common-law is suspected of killing a policewoman in Paris, Cavusoglu added.
"We understand this thanks to telephone recordings," Cavusoglu told Anadolu Agency. "We provided [French authorities] with the information as soon as we got it, without them even asking."
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told France's BFM TV on Monday that there was "without a doubt" at least one accomplice to the deadly attacks in Paris and vowed that "the hunt will go on." It was not clear whether he was talking about Boumeddiene or an additional suspect.
Turkish foreign minister told Anadoluthe country's intelligence services tracked Boumedienne from her arrival in the country on Jan. 2.
French officials also alerted the Turkish government that Boumedienne had traveled to Turkey with a companion named as Mehdi Sabri Belhoucine, an official close to the investigation and a member of the police told NBC News on Monday.
Turkish intelligence then tracked Boumedienne via her cellphone and listened to her conversations, discovering that she had arrived in Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen International Airport stayed on the Asian side of the city, the sources said. CCTV video from the airport emerged on Monday that officials say shows the duo at the airport's passport control office.
Boumedienne and Belhoucine stayed at Bade Otel, a small and relatively cheap hotel in a middle-class neighborhood,the Turkish police source said. During their time in Istanbul, the two moved around the city like tourists and did nothing to arouse officials’ suspicions, the Turkish sources added.
Intelligence officials followed her telephone signals until she and Belhoucine went to the Turkish city of Sanliurfa near the border with Syria on Thursday, after which they lost track of the pair, they added. The discrepancy between the foreign minister's comments and the sources account could not immediately be explained.
Boumedienne's common-law husband Amedy Coulibaly is believed to have killed a French policewoman on Thursday, the day before he killed four hostages at a kosher supermarket. Police have described her as an accomplice in the officer's killing.
Video emerged Sunday purporting to show Coulibaly pledging allegiance to ISIS and defending the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. A man who looks like Coulibaly is shown exercising, with a gun and giving speeches with an ISIS banner. The SITE Intelligence Group said it had verified the video.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
