Muslims Pay Tributes to Paris Hero Cop
"I didn't want to see the video, but then I watched it. It is even worse. It is a barbaric act, killing someone like that. They didn't think of him as a person," Aziz Mezine, who works at the Bazar Egyptien where Merabet visited most weekends, told The Telegraph.
"He was straightforward, modest, super kind," he said. "He was adorable ... Everyone liked him.
"I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it."
Merabet was executed by a gunman on the streets of Paris in a shocking footage of the attack on Charlie Hebdo offices showed.
As the gunmen moved closer to the wounded uniformed Ahmed, they asked the 42-year-old: "Do you want to kill us?"
"No, no chief," said Merabet before they shot him in the head at point blank range and escaped.
Merabet, originally from Livry-Gargan, had been a fully-trained police officer for eight years. His family have said they wish to bury him at a large Muslim cemetery north-east of Paris.
Mezine is one of the traders of the Rue de Lappe, where Ahmed Merabet was the smiling policeman who popped in for a drink and a chat after hours every weekend.
"No one condones acts like this," he said.
"He was such a smiling boy. Two years ago, my 16-year-old nephew came from Bordeaux for the holidays. He was here in the restaurant all by himself. I asked Ahmed if he would chat to him for a bit and they stayed talking for two hours.
"Despite the age gap – the policeman and the boy from the banlieues (the suburbs)."
Mezine added that the attackers had not cared that the policeman was a fellow Muslim.
"Muslim or not Muslim, they just saw the uniform and killed him," he said.
"He was wearing a uniform and representing France, so they don't look at religion."
Living for Others
Flowers, candles and pens were placed yesterday at the spot where Merabet was killed.
Moreover, a hashtag, #JeSuisAhmed, began to trend as social media users expressed solidarity with the police cop who died defending Charlie Hebdo’s right to mock his religion.
"These men who hide behind masks are not men," Mehenni Mezine, another trader on the Rue de Lappe, said.
"To do this to a human being without defence, to say 'it's good, chief' ... These are savages, they are barbarians ... It is an abomination," he added, saying that Merabet had given his life to save others.
"They are not men. The man who is dead, that was a man. He said he wanted to start a family. And he was going to get married in the spring. It's terrible."
The Muslim cop was popular among bar staff and shopkeepers in the area.
The 40-year-old was reportedly preparing to get married this summer and had recently been promoted.
His friends said he had been looking forward to starting a family.
Friends plan to make signs, "Je Suis Ahmed" to place alongside the "Je Suis Charlie" signs that have become the symbol of the tragedy.
"We are all Charlie, whether we are Muslim or not," Mezine said.
"We are not scared of barbarians like that. We have the right to express ourselves. We are all Charlie and we are all Ahmed."
Seeing the Charlie Hebdo attack as a betrayal of Islamic faith, leaders from Muslim countries and organizations have joined worldwide condemnation of the attack, saying the attackers should not be associated with Islam.
