Hasna Ait Boulahcen: Paris Raid Woman Died of Asphyxiation, Say Prosecutors

Hasna Ait Boulahcen, who died in a police raid after the Paris attacks, died of asphyxiation, French prosecutors say.

However, her family argues she was murdered.

Hasna Ait Boulahcen, 26, died in a Saint-Denis flat alongside suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Her family’s lawyer Fabien N’Doumou said she may have been shot by police.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has said an autopsy shows Hasna Ait Boulahcen died from asphyxiation after an explosion caused by a suicide vest.

Reports in the days after the raid said Hasna Ait Boulahcen had detonated the suicide vest.

In early January, prosecutors said a third suspect who died in the raid, Belgian-Moroccan national Chakib Akrouh, was wearing the explosives.

Hasna Ait Boulahcen’s mother, sister and brother have lodged a murder complaint, against persons unknown. They are asking for her body to be returned for burial, and for the investigation to re-examine how she died.

The raid took place on November 18, five days after the attacks in which 130 people were killed.

Reports in French media said Hasna Ait Boulahcen, who was Abdelhamid Abaaoud’s cousin, was responsible for finding the flat in which he hid, and drove him there in the days after the attacks.

Hasna Ait Boulahcen, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants, “was under pressure by her cousin”, the family’s complaint says, according to French network iTele.

The complaint, according to iTele, focuses on a recording made outside the flat during the raid, in which a woman’s voice is heard shouting: “Can I leave? I want to leave.”