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In the spectacular trial of the Islamist terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo”, the aides were sentenced to long prison terms. One of the main suspects, Ali Riza Polat, is expected to be jailed for 30 years on charges of complicity in crimes with a terrorist background, the court announced. His lawyers announced an appeal. The court did not consider the terrorist records of some of the defendants proven.
Imposed prison terms range from four years to life imprisonment. Since the beginning of September, eleven alleged aides from the 2015 terrorist series have been tried in Paris. 17 people died at that time. Three other defendants are on the run.
Not only the attack on the “Charlie Hebdo” newsroom in January 2015, but also the subsequent attack on a kosher supermarket in the south of Paris is being tried before a special court for terrorism cases. Most of the court’s verdicts were now lower than those requested by the prosecution.
Polat attracted much attention during the trial at the secure Paris Courthouse with his demeanor – he was impulsive and loud. The prosecution had demanded a life sentence for him. Polat is considered the right-hand man of the murderer Amédy Coulibaly, who shot a policewoman and killed four hostages in a supermarket after the attack on the magazine.
The court determined that Polat had helped Coulibaly in a concrete and detailed way, the presiding judge Régis de Jorna justified his decision according to the channel France Inter. The 35-year-old Frenchman with Turkish roots was well aware of Coulibaly’s intentions. “That is wrong,” Polat said during sentencing. He had always denied knowing the attack plans.
The life partner of the murderer Coulibaly was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Hayat Boumeddiene was not present at the trial in Paris. It is said that he fled to Syria and joined the terrorist organization “Islamic State” there. It is not clear if she is still alive. According to investigators, Boumeddiene, then 26, left France with brothers Mohamed and Mehdi Belhoucine a few days before the attacks. The former was now sentenced to the harshest sentence: he was sentenced to life imprisonment. But the brothers are supposed to be dead.
In the court’s opinion, the defendants mainly assisted the attackers in obtaining equipment such as weapons or cars. They had repeatedly denied knowledge of the terrorist plans. The court saw no proof of this in all of them. Most of the aides did not deny that they were involved in arms or drug trafficking, and some even proudly said how well they made money.
Many victims and family members had hoped that the trial would answer the question why. The trial failed. The gain in knowledge was hardly beyond what the researchers had previously gathered in years of detailed work. The result was at times detailed descriptions by criminals of their everyday life outside of society with jail time, criminal treatment, alcohol, and favors.
“Behind the picturesque image of suburban petty criminals that the defendant wanted to unleash is a violence that should terrorize all of French society,” wrote “Charlie Hebdo” editor and cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau alias Riss about the Trial. The magazine’s attorney, Richard Malka, said visibly moved after the verdict was delivered that justice had been served.
The process received enormous importance in France. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described it as “historic.” All negotiations were videotaped and will be archived. The trial was emblematic of the fight against Islamist terror that has rocked France for years. During the trial, France was hit by Islamist attacks three times in a few weeks. One even happened in front of the old “Charlie Hebdo” newsroom.
The descriptions of the survivors and family members, who were given plenty of space at the beginning of the hearing, were particularly impressive. They spoke of the horror of the attacks and how they still suffer from the horrible crimes, physically and mentally. This was perhaps the only moment of sincerity in the process, wrote cartoonist Riss. “Ultimately, the truth will only have come from the side of the victims.”
