[ad_1]
Paris – Almost six years after the deadly attack on the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie hebdo and in a Jewish supermarket, 14 people have been convicted by a Paris court of helping the three murderers.
During the trial, the court heard how brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi walked into Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices on January 7, 2015 and killed 11 people, including eight editors.
While fleeing the scene, the brothers killed a policeman who had been posted outside after the publication received numerous threats related to the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims believe that the image of the prophet should not be displayed or published, and many were offended.
Two days later, Amedy Coulibaly, who had been in close contact with the Kouachi brothers, attacked the kosher Hyper Cacher supermarket in Vincennes, a suburb on the outskirts of Paris. Coulibaly took shoppers and employees hostage, killing four men in a confrontation that lasted several hours and ended in his death when police stormed the building.
The Kouachis were also killed in another shootout with the police.
Michel Euler / AP
Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly’s partner, was convicted of terrorist association and terrorist financing. Boumeddiene, who has been a fugitive since the attacks, was tried in absentia and sentenced to 30 years in prison. French media have reported that she was seen a few months ago at an Islamic State camp in Syria, and is believed to still be in that region.
Only 11 of the defendants were in court for trial. Brothers Mohamed and Mehdi Belhoucine are missing in Syria and are presumed to have died, and were sentenced in absentia. Mohamed Belhoucine, who wrote Coulibaly’s loyalty oath to the Islamic State group, was found guilty of complicity in Coulibaly’s crimes; Mehdi Belhoucine was found guilty of being part of a terrorist criminal network.
Coulibaly’s friend Ali Riza Polat, accused of helping to prepare the supermarket attack, was convicted of being an accessory to terrorist crimes and sentenced to 30 years in prison. His lawyers have already promised to appeal.
The president of the court, when issuing the verdict, pointed out that, for procedural reasons, some of the defendants could not be tried for anti-Semitic crimes, but stressed that it was clear that Coulibaly attacked that supermarket for being Jewish.
The other defendant faced a variety of charges including providing material support, financing, buying weapons and procuring a car to flee, and were sentenced to prison terms of between 4 and 20 years.
The trial should have ended on November 10, but had to be postponed twice when multiple people, including one of the defendants, tested positive for COVID-19.
When the trial opened on September 2Charlie Hebdo reissued some of the cartoons, under the title “Tout ça pour ça” – “All that for this”.
AFP / Getty
“We will never give up,” promised a defiant Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, director of Charlie Hebdo, at the time. “And we will never give up.” The newspaper now operates from a secret, heavily guarded location, and journalists continue to receive threats.
