Six of the hostages who survived the siege of a Paris kosher market in January are suing a French media outlet for broadcasting their hiding spot during live coverage of the crisis.
French 24-hour news channel BFMTV broadcast live images of the group, including a 3-year-old child and 1-month-old infant, hiding in a refrigerator in the back of the store during the Jan. 9 attack, Hurriyet Daily News reported Friday.
Gunman Amedy Coulibaly stormed into the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket, killing four and taking other shoppers hostage.
Patrick Klugman, a lawyer representing the group, said the images broadcast by the news outlet “lacked the most basic precautions,” The Agence France Presse reported.
“The working methods of media in real time in this type of situation were tantamount to goading someone to commit a crime,” Mr. Klugman said, adding that the lives of those hiding in the refrigerator “could have been at risk if Coulibaly had been aware in real time what BFMTV was broadcasting.”
A spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office told CNN that the lawsuit was filed on March 27 and a preliminary investigation was opened on Wednesday.
The January attack was one of a slew of Islamist shootings in France that week, which began with the attack on the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which often publishes caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.
The two brothers, Cherfi and Said Kouchi, who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack, were killed in a police shoot-out the same day as the kosher market siege, when Coulibaly was killed as well.
After the siege, 24-year-old supermarket employee, Lassana Bathily, was praised for hiding 15 customers in the refrigerator.
Seventeen people were killed over three days in the terror attacks.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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