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Bataclan Survivors, Families File Legal Complaint Asking Why Soldiers Were Ordered To Stand Down

Bataclan Survivors, Families File Legal Complaint Asking Why Soldiers Were Ordered To Stand Down
By Mstyslav Chernov - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
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PARIS (CelebrityAccess) Survivors and families of victims of the attack at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris filed suit yesterday to find out why nearby soldiers were ordered to stand down when Islamic State gunmen stormed the venue in 2015, killing 130 people inside the venue and elsewhere.

Attorney Samia Maktouf told the Associated Press the legal complaint is not to punish the soldiers, who were stationed nearby, but to expose who was responsible in the French government for their actions. The Paris prosecutor’s office now needs to study the complaint and decide if it should pursue an investigation.

Eighty-nine people were killed inside the Bataclan, which was hosting a show by Eagles of Death Metal.  One of the victims was the band’s own merch vendors, Nick Alexander, as well as Les Inrocks reporter Guillaume B. Decherf and Mercury Records staff member Thomas Ayad.

Maktouf said eight soldiers nearby were ordered not to use their weapons or even to help administer first aid to the victims.

The legal filing occurred simultaneously with a lawsuit filed by surviving victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., who say the police did not do enough to stop it. That event in June 2016 killed 49 and injured 53.

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