Updated: September 1, 2020 8:13:46 pm
FILE – In this Jan. 11, 2015, file photo, thousands of people gather at Place de la République in Paris. The January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo and, two days later, a kosher supermarket, triggered a wave of killings claimed by the Islamic State group across Europe. Seventeen people died along with the three attackers. Thirteen men and one woman accused of providing weapons and logistics to the attackers go to trial on terrorism charges Wednesday, Sept. 2 (AP Photo / Peter Dejong, file)
The French satirical newspaper whose staff was decimated in a violent attack by Islamic extremists in 2015 is reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad cited by the murderers, declaring that “history cannot be rewritten or erased.”
Tuesday’s announcement came on the eve of the first trial for the month of January. 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo and, two days later, a kosher supermarket.
The killings set off a wave of violence claimed by the Islamic State group across Europe. Seventeen people died, 12 of them in the editorial offices, along with the three attackers.
Thirteen men and one woman accused of providing weapons and logistics to the attackers go to trial Wednesday.
In an editorial this week accompanying the cartoons, the newspaper best known for its vulgar irreverence said that although it had refused to publish cartoons of Muhammad since the attacks, it was necessary to do so for the opening of the trial.
“The only reasons not to derive from political or journalistic cowardice,” the editorial said.
As the attackers, brothers Chrif and Said Kouachi, walked away from the carnage, they shouted “We have avenged the Prophet.”
Claiming the attacks in the name of al-Qaida, they then killed an injured police officer point-blank and left.
Two days later, an acquaintance of hers in prison broke into a kosher supermarket on the eve of the Jewish Saturday, killing four hostages and claiming loyalty to the Islamic State group.
By then, the Kouachi brothers had taken refuge in a printing press with another hostage. All three attackers were killed in almost simultaneous police raids.
The supermarket shooter, Amedy Coulibaly, also killed a young policewoman.
The cartoons republished this week were first printed in 2006 by Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, sparking sometimes violent protests from Muslims who believe that depicting Muhammad is blasphemy.
FILE – In this Jan. 14, 2015 file photo, there are flowers outside Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters in Paris. (AP Photo / Jacques Brinon, file)
Charlie Hebdo, who was then little known outside of France and regularly caricatures religious leaders of various faiths, republished them shortly after.
The newspaper’s offices in Paris were bombed in 2011 and its editorial leadership was placed under police protection, which remains in place to this day.
Laurent Sourisseau, the newspaper’s editor and one of the few staff members who survived the attack, named each of the victims in a foreword to this week’s issue.
“It is rare those who, five years later, dare to oppose the demands that remain so urgent from religions in general, and some in particular,” wrote Sourisseau, also known as Riss.
Three of the accused, including the wife of one of the attackers, will not be at the trial because they are abroad and it is not known if they are alive or dead.
Most of the 11 who will appear in court say they knew it was for a crime, but say they had no idea it was for mass murder.
Among those inside the market was Lassana Bathily, an employee whose home village in Mali was only 20 kilometers from Coulibaly.
Bathily hid a group of Jewish customers from the store in a cold room and went out to warn the police about the terrorist attack inside. Eleven days later, the unlikely hero obtained French citizenship. He is one of nearly 200 plaintiffs at trial.
“We want to know what really happened, even if the terrorists will not be there. I hope that those who worked with them, helped them financially, are punished for what they did. That’s the only thing we hope for, ”Bathily said.
“We want to know the truth because we don’t know anything, we haven’t heard anything for the last five years.”
the the world rallied behind France in the days after the killings.
FILE – In this Jan. 11, 2015 file photo, from left to right: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, French President Francois Hollande, Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, EU President Donald Tusk and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a rally march in Paris. (Philippe Wojazer, Pool via AP, file)
Leaders from around the world joined millions of people who flocked to the huge Place de la République in Paris and other gathering places in France with defiant signs reading “I am Charlie.”
But the January 2015 attacks were seen as a colossal intelligence failure for France.
At least one of the Kouachi brothers had traveled to Yemen to train with al-Qaida. Chrif Kouachi, the youngest, recognized him in an interview with a French television network during his final siege.
Said Kouachi was under surveillance until mid-2014. In a 2008 interview with Le Monde newspaper, Coulibaly himself described the prison, where he met Chrif Kouachi, who was awaiting trial on terrorism charges, as “the best school criminal”.
His mentor in jail is among those scheduled to testify.
Subsequently, the French government reorganized its intelligence structure, increased the national security budget, and hired hundreds more investigators to monitor local extremists.
“The opening of this trial is the moment to remember that the fight against Islamist terrorism is one of the main priorities of the government,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in a speech at French intelligence headquarters on Monday. “We will fight without rest.”
The trial will be filmed for posterity, a rarity in France reserved for historically significant proceedings.
One of the three missing defendants is Hayat Boumedienne, Coulibaly’s wife who fled to Syria days before the attacks. She took a leading role in one of the Islamic State’s propaganda bombings, urging French Muslims, men and women alike, to keep going.
French media reported that a woman who returned from Syria met Boumedienne last year at the huge al-Hol camp for Islamic State families, who lived under a false name. Since then, the field has seen numerous leaks.
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