In a case of mistaken identity, the images of Europe’s first female suicide bomber which surfaced on the internet last week have been found to belong to a woman in Morocco who is very much alive.
The photos, allegedly of suicide bomber Hasna Ait Bouchalen who died during the November 17 raid in Saint Denis, first appeared on Daily Mailand were then redistributed by many news websites all over the world.
“I have no connection to Hasna or terrorism. The journalist didn’t research anything, he just published what he got,” Nabila told AJ+.
The Moroccan female whose pictures were used without her permission, says her photos landed in the hands of an English journalist before making the rounds across the globe. She was interrogated by the police for four hours in connection to her photos on Sunday.
Nabila said that the family she hadn’t seen in a while thought she was the one who had died. “Journalists visited me at my house, apologising for having done this. They justify their actions by the resemblance to the real cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud,” she told Le360.
The Moroccan woman revealed that she had lived in France for a while and had befriended a woman with whom she had shared some pictures. The woman in question, a so-called Fouzia, later sold her photos to English press.
Nabila has filed a complaint in Morocco and intends to take the case to French courts, since her ‘friend’ lives in France.
The Daily Mail is expected to respond in the coming hours.
This article originally appeared on Morocco World News
