*Contributed reporting
In an emotional ceremony, French President Francois Hollande led tributes Tuesday to the three police officers killed in last week’s series of terror attacks.
In Israel, similar scenes of heartache played out as the four Jewish victims of the siege at a Paris kosher supermarket were laid to rest.
While the ceremonies were underway, Bulgarian authorities announced that they had arrested a French citizen suspected of links to the brothers behind the massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine, media reports said.
Fritz Jolie Joaquin was taken into custody at Bulgaria’s southern Kapitan Andreevo border crossing with Turkey on Jan. 1, the reports said, adding that authorities believe he was seeking entry to Turkey with the intention of traveling onward to Syria.
French police had been seeking the 28-year-old, who is believed to have abducted his 3-year-old son late last year, smuggling him out of the country.
European authorities on Monday issued an additional arrest warrant for Joaquin — who is of Haitian descent — on suspicion of “conspiracy and plotting terrorist acts” and believe he is a relative of Said and Cherif Kouachi, who were killed in a shootout with police after French authorities said they killed 12 people in the Jan. 7 attack on Charlie Hebdo, Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu news agency reported.
Extradition proceedings against Joaquin have reportedly begun and are expected to be completed later this week.
The Kouachi brothers are believed to also have had close ties to Amedy Coulibaly, who authorities said fatally shot a policewoman in the back on Jan. 8 and took more than a dozen people hostage at the grocery store the next day, killing four.
Hayat Boumeddiene, believed to be Coulibaly’s partner, is still at large and now thought to be in Syria. French police told the Associated Press that they are searching the Paris area for a Mini Cooper registered to Boumeddiene and that half a dozen people in a cell suspected of organizing last week’s attacks are still at large.
The police victims — the policewoman and two officers killed in the Charlie Hebdo attack– were honored during a ceremony at police headquarters. The families of the slain officers were greeted individually by Hollande, Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve; many were visibly overcome with emotion.
The coffins of their loved ones were then carried into the building’s central quad, each draped in France’s tricolor flag as a single drum played.
Hollande awarded each victim posthumous Legion of Honor medals. “I assure you that the whole of France shares your sadness and your pain,” he told the families. “Three police officers died so that we can live free.”
The president also paid tribute to the three victims individually.
He said Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe, who authorities said was shot by Coulibaly after responding to a traffic incident, died as a martyr and was targeted because she wore a uniform and therefore symbolized the French republic.
Franck Brinsolaro had been assigned to protect Charlie Hebdo’s editor, Stephane Charbonnier, and was killed when two gunmen opened fire in the magazine offices during a morning editorial meeting.
“He was killed for freedom, for freedom of expression,” Hollande said.
The president also paid tribute to Ahmed Merabet, who confronted the gunmen in the street as they fled the scene of the attack. He was brutally shot him in the head as he lay on the ground with his hands up.
He was Muslim and of Algerian descent, and had always wanted to be a policeman, Hollande said.
“Ahmed is dead,” he said. “His memory lives on.”
Staff writers McDonnell and Molly Hennessy-Finke reported from Paris. Boyle is a special correspondent in London. Special correspondent Glen Johnson in Istanbul contributed to this report.