Newsagents quizzed about Hebdo sales

OFFICERS from three police forces in the UK have questioned newsagents about customers who bought the “survivors edition” of satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, it has emerged.

A letter from a Wiltshire woman published in The Guardian revealed that she had asked her local newsagent to reserve a copy of the special edition of the magazine - but, two days after she had received her order, she learned that a police officer had visited the shop to request “the names of the four customers who had purchased Charlie Hebdo”.

It was initially believed that this was an isolated incident, and Wiltshire Police has since apologised, but it has emerged that officers in Wales and Cheshire also questioned newsagents about the sale of the magazine’s special issue, published after several members of Charlie Hebdo staff, a cleaner and two police officers were gunned down by terrorists who had stormed the publication’s Paris office.

A newsagent in Wales, who said he had sold about 30 copies of the “survivors edition”, told The Guardian that officers from Dyfed-Powys police had questioned his wife in front of customers for half an hour about who had bought a copy of the magazine.

Both Cheshire and Dyfed-Powys Police told The Guardian that officers had visited newsagents to encourage them to be vigilant while the magazine was in stock and provide reassurance.

The newspaper reports that the Association of Chief Police Officers had issued no guidelines to forces on talking to newsagents about the magazine.

The massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices on January 7 sparked three days of terror attacks in France.

The following morning, a young police officer was killed as she attended a traffic incident in the Montrouge area of Paris. Four more victims were killed in one of two sieges 24 hours later, along with three suspected terrorists.

Nearly eight million copies of the survivors edition of the satirical weekly have been sold.

Photo: Elisa Pineau / Twitter