"Charlie Hebdo", Montrouge, Hyper Cacher: the trial of the attacks opens this Wednesday

The courtroom of the Paris court where the trial of the January 2015 attacks will be held from September 2 to November 10. REUTERS / Christian Hartmann

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4 min

More than five years after the events, the trial of the series of terrorist attacks perpetrated from January 7 to 9, 2015 by the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly opens on September 2 in Paris.

Originally scheduled for last May, it was postponed due to Covid.

An extraordinary trial.

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The special assize court, which usually sits in the old palace on the Ile de la Cité in the heart of Paris, has relocated to the largest and most recent judicial tribunal in the north-west of the capital to judge a trial of a rare magnitude: more than 2 months of hearings are scheduled, 200 people have joined as civil parties, around a hundred lawyers are involved.

Proof if necessary of its emblematic character, the trial will be filmed in its entirety, by virtue of its "interest in the constitution of historical archives of justice".

A first in terms of terrorism.

On the accused side, 14 people, 11 of whom will be present, will appear for having brought, to varying degrees, logistical support to the Saïd and Chérif Kouachi brothers and to Amédy Coulibaly, the authors of the

newspaper

and a policewoman in Montrouge as well. as hostage-taking in the Jewish grocery store

and a printing house in Dammartin-en-Goële.

In three days, the three terrorists, finally killed by the police, had murdered 17 people.

Three of the defendants will miss the call

The three absent seem to be among the most involved in the attacks and probably knew a lot about their preparation, they who left for the Iraqi-Syrian zone a few days before the attacks.

Medhi Belhoucine is accused of having, precisely, “exfiltrated” Hayat Boumedienne, the companion of Amedy Coulibaly, who would have helped finance the attacks via scams.

Mohamed Belhoucine, brother of Medhi, would be the mentor of Coulibaly, whose oath of allegiance to IS he would have written, read in a video of demands.

All three are the subject of arrest warrants, even though the Belhoucine brothers are presumed dead;

This was also the case for

, before a testimony gives her still alive in October 2019.

Prosecuted, like most of the accused, for "criminal terrorist association", Hayat Boumediene and Medhi Belhoucine face 20 years in prison.

Mohamed Belhoucine risks life imprisonment for "complicity in terrorist crimes".

A charge - the heaviest in this case - that he shares with Ali Riza Polat, detained since March 2015 and in particular accused of having provided the arsenal used by the terrorist trio.

This 35-year-old Franco-Turkish will therefore be the main accused present.

Detained since March 2015, he appears "at all stages of preparation" for the attacks for the prosecution.

He would have notably helped Coulibaly but also the Kouachi brothers to obtain their arsenal.

The other defendants, including several former Coulibaly co-detainees, are suspected of having provided logistical support to the killers by providing weapons or vehicles.

The trial which opens this Wednesday is the first for jihadist attacks committed in France since the one held in 2017 for the killings committed by Mohamed Merah five years earlier.

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