Paris – Nearly six years after the deadly attack on the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and at a Jewish supermarket, 14 people have been convicted by a court in Paris for helping the three murderers.
During the trial, the court heard about the brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi entered Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office on January 7, 2015 and killed 11 people, including eight editorial staff.
As they fled the scene, the brothers killed a police officer standing outside after the publication received numerous threats related to the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Muslims believe that the parable of the Prophet should not be shown 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 and killed four men in a standoff that lasted several hours and ended with his death when police stormed the building.
The Kouachis were also killed in a separate shootout with the police.
Michel Euler / AP
Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly’s partner, was found guilty of terrorist association and terrorist financing. Boumeddiene, who has been on the run since the attacks, was tried in absentia and sentenced to 30 years in prison. French media has reported that she was seen in an Islamic State camp in Syria several months ago, and is believed to still be in that region.
Only 11 of the defendants were in court for the trial. Brothers Mohamed and Mehdi Belhoucine are missing in Syria and presumed dead, and were sentenced in absentia. Mohamed Belhoucine, who wrote Coulibaly’s oath of allegiance to the Islamic State group, was found guilty of complicity in Coulibaly’s crimes; Mehdi Belhoucine was found guilty of participating in a criminal terror network.
Coulibaly’s friend Ali Riza Polat, accused of preparing the supermarket attack, was convicted of complicity in terrorist offenses and sentenced to 30 years in prison. His lawyers have already promised to appeal.
The court president, who delivered the verdict, noted that some of the suspects could not be tried for anti-Semitic crimes for procedural reasons, but he stressed that it was clear that Coulibaly was attacking that supermarket because it was Jewish.
The other accused faced several charges, including providing material support, financing, buying weapons, and buying a getaway car, and received prison terms ranging from 4 to 20 years.
The trial was supposed to end on November 10, but had to be suspended twice when several people, including one of the defendants, tested positive for COVID-19.
When the trial opened on September 2Charlie Hebdo republished some of the cartoons, under the heading “Tout ça pour ça” – “All for this.”
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“We will never give in,” 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, high-security location and the journalists are still under threat.