The 18-year-old suspect who surrendered to the French police after his name started doing the rounds in the Charlie Hebdo shooting case, is finding support among his classmates who claim he was not involved in the dastardly attack and was in class with them.
Mourad Hamyd surrendered himself after reportedly seeing his name circulating on the media, but some reports now suggest that he had only gone to the police to clarify that he was in school at the time of the attack.
Hamyd, reportedly a student at a high school in Charleville-Mezieres near Reims has been named as one of the three suspects who attacked Charlie Hebdo office, along with two brothers - Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi.
Authorities claimed that Hamyd, the youngest suspect, drove the car in which the attackers fled after the shooting and was identified by an ID card left behind in the abandoned car, but many netizens have voiced the possibility of a possible decoy.
Now, several of Hamyd's classmates are defending him on social media, with the hastag #MouradHamydInnocent trending on Twitter in France.
The translated French tweets have messages that read: "What is this madness, the Mourad Hamyd was with me this morning" and "Mourad Hamyd wrongly accused, he was in class at the time of the facts, his classmates can attest."
Some of the other messages on Twitter, as translated on storify.com are as follows:
"This guy spends his day in class, and he is guilty of an attack."
"He was in me high school, I saw that smile this morning as usual. He would never Please support."
