Official: Cornered French terror suspects want to be martyrs

By ANGELA CHARLTON and RAPHAEL SATTER, Associated Press

Jan 9, 2015 5:45 AM CST

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Official: Cornered French terror suspects want to be martyrs — French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve addresses reporters at the end of a crisis meeting with French President Francois Hollande, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Friday Jan. 9, 2015. Investigators are scrutinizing the recent past of two brothers with al-Qaida sympathies, as a manhunt for the suspects... (Associated Press)

DAMMARTIN-EN-GOELE, France (AP) —

An official in the French town where two terror suspects are holed up with a hostage near a school tells The Associated Press that phone contact has been established with the men. A lawmaker inside the command post tells French television the men "want to die as martyrs."

Audrey Taupenas, spokeswoman for Dammartin-en-Goele, says officials established phone contact with the suspects in order to negotiate the safe evacuation of a school near the printing plant where the men are cornered. She says the suspects agreed.

Yves Albarello, a lawmaker who said he was inside the command post, said the two brothers told i-Tele on Friday they "want to die as martyrs."

The men are suspected in the attack against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.

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