Je suis Charlie: Trial opens over 2015 terror attack
A woman on Monday walks past a wall painting to those killed at the magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Fourteen alleged accomplices to the Islamist gunmen who attacked the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015 went on trial on Wednesday, as the country recalled a dark episode that marked the onset of a wave of militant violence.
Seventeen people and all three gunmen died during the three days of attacks in January 2015. In November that year, a separate network of French and Belgian fighters for Islamic State struck Paris again, killing 130 people in attacks at the Bataclan concert hall, the national stadium, and in bars and restaurants.
Those on trial in France’s terrorism court are accused of buying weapons, cars, and helping with logistics. Most say they thought they were helping plan an ordinary crime. Three, including the only woman accused, are being tried in absentia after leaving to join Islamic State.
The attacks from January 7 to 9, 2015, started during an editorial meeting at Charlie Hebdo, whose offices had been unmarked and guarded by police since the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed years before. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, gunned down 12 people before carjacking a vehicle and fleeing. They claimed the attacks in the name of al-Qaida.
The next day, Amedy Coulibaly, an acquaintance of Cherif Kouachi, shot dead a female police officer. On January 9, he killed four Jewish men at a kosher supermarket in the name of Islamic State. The three were killed by police in different standoffs.
Lawyers talk with police as they arrive for the opening of the trial.
The trial was originally set for last spring but was delayed by the coronavirus crisis that shut down most French courthouses. It is due to last until November 10.
Eleven of the 14 defendants appeared in courtroom modified especially for the trial, each watched over by two police officers wearing balaclavas and bullet-proof vests.
Three are being tried in absentia. Hayat Boumedienne, Coulibaly’s partner at the time of the attacks, and brothers Mohamed and Mehdi Belhoucine, traveled to areas of Syria under Islamic State’s control days before the attacks and may be dead.
“Since 2012, terrorism capitalized on the prevailing delinquency there is around these terrorists,” said Samia Maktouf, a lawyer for one of the attack survivors.
“They are not second fiddles, they are full accomplices. You know, when you provide a weapon it’s not to go and party.”
Despite a global outpouring of support, the attacks were also seen as a massive intelligence failure.
French authorities ended a phone tap on one of the Kouachi brothers a few months before they stormed the editorial offices. At least one had trained with al-Qaida in Yemen and been convicted of an earlier terrorism offense. The brothers walked away from the carnage they had caused, escaping easily and drove through multiple dragnets before being trapped two days later.
“The government failed. If the intelligence services had done their job, this would not have happened,” said Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, lawyer for the only person in court facing a life term. “The victims don’t just want a guilty verdict, but real justice. The truth must come out. It’s not a justice of vengeance, but a justice to know.”
Covers of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo reading “All of this, just for that,” published on Wednesday to mark this week’s start of the trial.
Wednesday’s trial opened under tight security around the courthouse, with multiple police checks for anyone entering the main courtroom or the overflow rooms.
At nearby news-stands, the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo appeared, defiantly reprinting the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed cited by the gunmen.
“They died so that you journalists could do your jobs,” said Richard Malka, lawyer for Charlie Hebdo. “Let us not be afraid. Not of terrorism, not of freedom.”
More than 250 people have been killed in France in Islamist violence since the attacks, which laid bare France’s struggle to counter the threat of homegrown militants and foreign jihadists.
