Paris | More than five years after the January 2015 attacks against “Charlie Hebdo”, police officers and a Jewish supermarket, which sowed fear in France and abroad, an extraordinary trial opens Wednesday in Paris under close surveillance policewoman.
To mark the opening of this historic trial, “Charlie Hebdo” has decided to republish the cartoons of Muhammad, the very ones that had made the satirical weekly a target for the jihadists. It is “a courageous choice, a worthy choice (…) a very strong affirmation of their freedom of expression, of their refusal of intimidation”, welcomed Christophe Deloire, the president of Reporters Without Borders (RSF). , in court, to AFP.
And from Beirut on Tuesday evening, President Emmanuel Macron defended “the freedom to blaspheme” in France. “Tomorrow, we will all have a thought for the cowardly slaughtered women and men” in January 2015, added the president.
This republication, however, triggered the ire of Pakistan, which condemned it Tuesday evening with “the greatest firmness”.
For two and a half months, 150 witnesses and experts will follow one another before the special assize court, responsible for judging these extraordinary attacks.
Fourteen defendants are being prosecuted, suspected of varying degrees of logistical support to the Saïd and Chérif Kouachi brothers and Amédy Coulibaly, perpetrators of the killings which left 17 dead between January 7 and 9, shaking France and the rest of the world.
Several million people, including many heads of state and government, marched on January 11 in Paris and in provincial towns against these attacks, during a monster demonstration of unprecedented scale.
The January 2015 attacks marked the start of a series of Islamist attacks in France, including those of November 13 in Paris and the northern suburbs, which left 130 dead and more than 350 injured.
Initially scheduled before the summer, the trial had been postponed due to the health crisis. It will be fully filmed for the constitution of historical archives of justice – a first in terms of terrorism.
This trial has “a double interest”: “to approach the truth” and offer “a moment of expression” to the victims, insisted the national anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard. They “will be able to explain, ask, try to understand and that is fundamental”.
Sign of the importance given to this cathartic approach: the first weeks of the hearing will be devoted to the testimonies of the 200 civil parties. The progress of the investigation and the questioning of the accused will only be discussed later.
Three accused absent
On January 7, 2015, the brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi assassinated 11 people in an attack with the weapon of war against the editorial staff of “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris, before fleeing by killing a police officer.
The next day, Amédy Coulibaly – who had rubbed shoulders with Chérif Kouachi in prison – killed a municipal policewoman in Montrouge, near Paris, then on January 9, he executed four men, all Jews, during the hostage-taking of the Hyper Cacher store, in eastern Paris.
This murderous journey had ended with the death of the three jihadists during a double police assault, carried out almost simultaneously in the store and in a printing press in Dammartin-en-Goële (Seine-et-Marne) where the Charlie Hebdo killers s ‘were entrenched.
What role did the 14 accused play? What did they know about the attacks? Until November 10, the Assize Court will endeavor to discern the degree of responsibility of each in the preparation of the attacks.
Three of them will however be missed and will be judged by default: Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly’s companion and figure of female jihadism, and the Belhoucine brothers, all three who left a few days before the attacks for the Iraqi-Syrian zone.
The death of the Belhoucine brothers, mentioned by various sources, has never been officially confirmed. Hayat Boumeddiene, a time given dead, is for his part suspected of being on the run in Syria.
“Frustration”
On the criminal level, the anti-terrorism judges have upheld the heaviest charges – “complicity” in terrorist crimes punishable by life imprisonment – against the eldest of the Belhoucine brothers, Mohamed, and against Ali Riza Polat, who will be him in the accused box.
This close friend of Amédy Coulibaly is suspected of having played a central role in the preparations for the attacks, in particular the supply of the arsenal used by the terrorist trio, which he defends himself against.
The other defendants are mainly tried for “criminal terrorist association” and face twenty years imprisonment. Only one appears free under judicial supervision for simple “criminal association”, an offense punishable by ten years in prison.
The court will “have the heavy task of judging the facts for which the main responsible will not be present, and cannot give an account. For this, justice will be put to a severe test, ”recalls Me Safya Akorri, lawyer for one of the 14 accused.
The absence of the Kouachi brothers and Amédy Coulibaly is a “source of frustration”, acknowledged the national anti-terrorism prosecutor, while “rejecting the idea” that the 14 accused are “small hands, people without interest”.
In total, the wave of attacks perpetrated in France since January 2015 has left 258 dead, the terrorist threat remaining at an “extremely high” level five years after the fact, according to the Interior.
For François Hollande, President of the Republic at the time of the attacks, the terrorists have nevertheless “lost” in their desire to “divide the French”.