A woman mistakenly identified as an alleged terrorist has come forward in an attempt to set the record straight.
Nabila Bakkatha, from the central Moroccan city of Benu Mellal, told CNN a former acquaintance had sold photographs of her to the press as she bore a passing similarity to Hasna Ait Boulahcen.
Boulahcen was implicated in the Paris atrocities on 13 November that killed 130 people and injured hundreds more in a series of co-ordinated attacks across the capital. She was later killed in a police raid on a flat in the Saint-Denis suburb on 18 November.
Ms Bakkatha told CNN, after revealing her story to a Moroccan news outlet, she believes her former friend sold the photographs for “revenge” after their relationship soured.
As the photographs purporting to be of Boulahcen flashed round the world – most notably one of her in the bath – Ms Bakkatha said her life changed beyond recognition.
"My life changed drastically, I stopped going to work, and I cannot go out anymore as I live in continuous fear," she said. "I am sure I will face a lot of problems if I travel to France."
She added her family were “shocked” and “some of my relatives are not talking to me anymore”.
Ms Bakkatha fell out with the woman who she alleges sold the photographs shortly after her returned to Morocco in 2007, following the end of her studies in France.
Ms Bakkatha, who currently lives alone with her children after divorcing her husband, said she was in the process of suing both the woman responsible for selling the images and the journalist who sold them.
