‘Always Charlie’
Cartoon led to deadly Hebdo attack, court is told
PARIS — The Islamist gunmen who attacked the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo five years ago, killing 12 people, sought to avenge the Prophet Mohammad, a French court heard Wednesday on the first day of the trial of more than a dozen alleged accomplices.
Homegrown militants Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris, spraying gunfire on Jan. 7, 2015, nearly a decade after the weekly published cartoons mocking the Prophet.
They paused to ensure then-editor Stephane Charbonnier was among the dead, the presiding judge said in a precis of the prosecution’s case.
In court, the magazine’s editor, Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, listened, his head bowed and eyes closed.
Al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate praised the Kouachi brothers for “killing those who are among the worst enemies of the Prophet and of Islam,” said Regis de Jorna, the presiding judge.
A third attacker, Amedy Coulibaly, killed a police officer and then four Jewish hostages in a kosher supermarket in a Paris suburb.
Like the Kouachis, Coulibaly was killed in a shootout with police.
The trial reopens one of modern France’s darkest episodes.
The attack began three days of bloodshed in Paris and marked the onset of a wave of Islamist violence that killed scores more.
France’s anti-terror prosecutor, Jean-Francois Ricard, said this week that the absence of the attackers would bring frustration to the families of those killed and other victims, but the trial was a chance to express pent-up emotion.
Prime Minister Jean Castex tweeted: “Always Charlie,” evoking the slogan #JeSuisCharlie, which became a unifying cry after the attacks.
In a rare move, the proceedings, due to last 10 weeks, will be recorded.
Police wearing balaclavas led 11 of the 14 accused into the courtroom and the defendants told the presiding judge they’d answer the court’s questions. Three others are being tried in absentia.
Hayat Boumedienne, Coulibaly’s partner at the time of the attacks, and brothers Mohamed and Mehdi Belhoucine, travelled to areas of Syria under Islamic State control days before the attacks and may be dead.
The defendants face charges ranging from supplying weapons and logistical help to financing terrorism and membership in a terrorist organization.
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 militants brought up in the country and foreign jihadists.