Alleged fake victim of Paris attacks faces fraud charge

Paris (AFP) – A 32-year-old woman appeared in court in France on Wednesday accused of fraud after allegedly falsely claiming to be a victim of the Paris jihadist attacks.

The woman had claimed to have been shot in the elbow or thumb, according to different accounts, during the attacks in which 130 people died and hundreds more were wounded at the national stadium and Paris nightspots on November 13, 2015.

She said that two of her friends were also killed in the rampage.

She now faces prosecution for false testimony and defrauding France’s FGTI compensation fund for terror victims of up to 20,000 euros.

The woman, who is not in custody, became heavily involved in a victims’ association, even being interviewed and photographed by AFP in November 2017 for an article about survivors who had tattoos to help cope with the trauma.

The Paris court adjourned the case until July 19. 

The case comes after, a 49-year-old woman who claimed 25,000 euros in compensation after posing as a victim of the Bataclan concert hall killings was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison in March.

In December Cedric Rey, an ambulance driver, was also sentenced to six months in jail for pretending to have been at the Bataclan when he was not even in Paris at the time of the attack.

He had described in vivid detail to the media how he escaped death when a pregnant woman “took the bullets meant for me” — only for the story to be exposed as a lie.