Charlie Hebdo: Fourteen suspects to face trial over Paris massacre

Fourteen persons are to go on trial in France over the lethal assault on the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo greater than 5 years in the past.

Many of the alleged accomplices will stand trial in Paris on Wednesday, however three might be tried in absentia.

They’re accused of serving to the militant Islamist attackers who shot useless 12 folks in and round Charlie Hebdo’s places of work in January 2015.

A 3rd gunman shot useless a policewoman and attacked a Jewish grocery store.

In whole, 17 folks had been killed in a interval of simply three days. The killings marked the start of a wave of jihadist assaults throughout France that left greater than 250 folks useless.

Within the days following the assaults, tens of millions of individuals took half in solidarity marches throughout France and world wide below the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (I’m Charlie).

Fourteen folks stand accused of serving to to put together and plan the killings. Their trial begins on Wednesday after the proceedings had been postponed for nearly 4 months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In March, the presiding decide mentioned France’s lockdown measures had made it unattainable to carry collectively “all of the events, witnesses and consultants below the mandatory sanitary situations”.

The alleged accomplices are accused of acquiring weapons and offering logistical assist for the assault on Charlie Hebdo’s workplace on 7 January 2015, in addition to the next assaults on a police officer and the Hyper Cacher grocery store.

However three suspects are believed to have disappeared in northern Syria and Iraq and might be tried in absentia. Some stories counsel the three males had been later killed in bombing campaigns towards the Islamic State group (IS), however this has not been confirmed.

There are about 200 plaintiffs within the trial and survivors of the assaults are anticipated to testify, France’s RFI broadcaster stories.

On Monday, the anti-terror prosecutor Jean-François Ricard dismissed the suggestion that it was simply “little helpers” who had been dealing with justice.

“It’s about people who’re concerned within the logistics, the preparation of the occasions, who supplied technique of financing, operational materials, weapons [and] a residence,” he informed France Data radio. “All that is important to the terrorist motion.”

The trial is predicted to final till November.

On 7 January that yr, two French Muslim gunmen stormed the Paris places of work of Charlie Hebdo within the Rue Nicolas-Appert earlier than opening hearth on its workers.

The gunmen had been ultimately killed by safety forces after a prolonged manhunt. Their victims had been eight journalists, two law enforcement officials, a caretaker and a customer.

In a associated assault simply days later, a jihadist gunman killed three clients and an worker in a hostage siege on the Hyper Cacher Jewish grocery store in Porte de Vincennes within the east of Paris.

He had earlier shot useless a policewoman within the metropolis.

Safety forces ultimately stormed the grocery store earlier than killing him and releasing the remaining hostages.

The unconventional weekly journal was well-known for taking swipes on the institution and faith and has lengthy drawn controversy.

Cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed introduced Charb demise threats in addition to 24-hour police safety prior to his demise. There was additionally a petroleum bomb assault on the journal’s places of work in 2011.

The publication has additionally been seen as a beacon without spending a dime speech, with lots of its defenders utilizing the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie to defend it.

Charb strongly defended the Prophet Mohammed cartoons as symbolic of freedom of speech. “I do not blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings,” he informed the Related Press in 2012. “I reside below French regulation. I do not reside below Koranic regulation.”

It added: “To breed these cartoons within the week the trial begins over the January 2015 terrorist assaults appeared important to us.”