At the verdict, Moussa Coulibaly remained impassive in the box, retaining the same vague look he has displayed since the opening of the trial. The Paris special Assize Court sentenced him to 30 years' imprisonment on Thursday (December 12th). In accordance with the submissions of the Advocate General, his sentence is accompanied by a 20-year security period.
The court recognized the 35-year-old man, "radicalized for years," guilty of assassination attempts, but also of a terrorist criminal conspiracy for seeking to go to Syria to join the Islamic State group. The Advocate General had requested the acquittal on the latter offense, Moussa Coulibaly having left "alone" before being expelled from Turkey.
He has no connection with Amédy Coulibaly, the author of the Montrouge shooting and hostage taking at the Hyper Cacher supermarket, in Paris in 2015.
For the professional magistrates, Moussa Coulibaly showed during this attack of a "quasi fanatical determination", applying "to the letter the injunctions" of the organization Islamic State to commit attacks on the French soil.
His lawyer Serge Money had asked the court to reclassify the facts as "aggravated willful violence", challenging the intention to kill and premeditation.
In his final words before the court retired to deliberate, Moussa Coulibaly assured: "Now I am against violence, I will not do it again what I did".
The judges also highlighted Moussa Coulibaly's "disturbing personality", whose "dangerousness has not been visibly diminished" by the years of detention and who expressed "little or no empathy at the hearing".
With AFP
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