These "ghosts" hovering over the trial of the January 2015 attacks

The investigation into the January 2015 attacks against Charlie Hebdo, the police and the Hypercacher lasted more than four years.

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• On January 7, 8 and 9, 2015, France was hit by several terrorist attacks targeting the editorial staff of the satirical newspaper

  Charlie-Hebdo

  , a municipal policewoman from Montrouge (Hauts-de-Seineà and customers of a Hyper Cacher store in Paris, causing a total of 17 victims.

• Five years later, fourteen people will appear, from September 2 to November 10, before the special assize court in Paris.

• Hayat Boumeddienne, the widow of Amedy Coulibaly, and two of his alleged accomplices, are still missing.

• After several years of investigation, the investigators were also unable to formally identify the principal (s).

Judge empty chairs, condemn ghosts.

For magistrates specializing in terrorism, it has - almost - become a habit.

Since 2015, on many occasions, justice has come up against the absence of men and women who have left to join the ranks of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, who have since been presumed dead or have not been found.

Like so many other files from the anti-terrorism section of the Paris prosecutor's office, that of the January 2015 attacks also carries its share of missing pieces.

After four years of investigation and a few days before the opening of the trial, this Wednesday, three defendants are still missing.

Like the three authors - Cherif, Saïd Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, killed during the assaults of the police - the wife of the terrorist from Montrouge and the Hyper Cacher and two of her relatives will not be able to answer questions from the court special seating.

Targeted by international arrest warrants, they left France a few days before the attacks.

However, their respective roles were deemed decisive by the investigating magistrates.

• Hayat Boumeddiene, the religious wife of Amedy Coulibaly

On the search notice released by the police in January 2015, her face appeared to the general public at the same time as that of her husband, Amedy Coulibaly, the author of the killings in Montrouge and Hyper Cacher.

Born in 1988, Hayat Boumeddiene was referred to the Special Assize Court alongside thirteen other suspects.

Exfiltrated from France to Syria on January 2, 2015 with the help of a relative of Coulibaly to join the ranks of Daesh, the young woman could not ignore the terrorist plans of her husband, believes justice.

According to the investigating magistrates, she even actively contributed to it.

From the end of 2014, it multiplied fraudulent consumer credits, scams and large cash withdrawals.

Shortly after arriving in Syria, Hayat Boumeddiene gives an interview to the French-speaking magazine of the Islamic State in which she explains that her husband had rejoiced in June 2014 at the proclamation of the caliphate and "was burning with desire to join his brothers" .

At no time does Hayat Boumeddiene “express his astonishment at being

party in Syria before and without Amedy Coulibaly ”and she confides“ her satisfaction at the announcement of the facts ”, continue the magistrates, based on several conversations between the accused and one of her friends intercepted during the procedure.

Unlike many figures in French jihad, Hayat Boumeddiene is still alive, according to the Center for Terrorism Analysis (CAT) and judicial sources.

“Hayat Boumeddiene has an atypical profile and has fully subscribed to the jihadist ideology of Daesh.

She has become an icon, a symbol or even a muse for this terrorist organization, ”notes one of the CAT co-founders, Jean-Charles Brisard, contacted by 

A statute that has greatly contributed to keeping her alive believes the expert: "Since her passage in Syria, she has always benefited from the protection of the Islamic State".

According to the CAT, the young woman, until now detained in the Al-Hol camps controlled by Kurdish forces, fled with twelve other French jihadist women.

Actively wanted and sent to court in her absence, she faces a 30-year prison sentence.

• Mohamed Belhoucine, the shadow of the mentor

When Amedy Coulibaly meets Mohamed Belhoucine for the first time, this 27-year-old man from Seine-Saint-Denis is already serving a prison sentence as part of a criminal association procedure.

Both incarcerated at the same time in Villepinte remand center, at the time they formed a relationship of friendship which they would maintain when they left prison.

In this case, Mohamed Belhoucine is one of the only two defendants sent back for complicity in the crimes committed in January 2015. For the magistrates, the eldest of the Belhoucine brothers not only had a major ideological role in the attacks perpetrated by his friend but also a logistical role.

The investigation showed that he was the author of the oath of allegiance to Daesh left by Coulibaly in his apartment in Gentilly (Val-de-Marne) and read during his video of demands.

Former student of the Ecole des Mines d'Albi, Mohamed Belhoucine was one of the most active French-speaking cyber-jihadists from the emergence of the caliphate.

Testimonies from other people involved in this procedure have also made it possible to establish that he was at the origin of the creation of several e-mail addresses, one of which was used by Amedy Coulibaly to communicate with the donor. order - unidentified - on his terrorist plans.

Having left for Syria with his wife and son a few hours after the departure of Hayat Boumeddiene, whom he accompanied by car to Madrid with Coulibaly, Mohamed Belhoucine would also have joined the ranks of Daesh.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the former engineering student died in action in 2016.

• Mehdi Belhoucine, the guide

Holder of a degree in mechanical engineering, Mehdi Belhoucine was just 23 years old when he flew from Madrid airport to Turkey alongside Ammy Coulibaly's wife.

Five days before the shooting that decimated the editorial staff of the weekly 

Mehdi Belhoucine has just joined the caliphate of Daesh.

Hidden by the two Belhoucine brothers in the family house, a cell phone displayed, this Sunday, January 2, the following SMS: “Mum, dad, don't worry, we have joined the caliphate.

Don't worry, we prefer to live in a country governed by Sharia law and not by laws invented by men ”.

Described by his relatives as "very religious", Mehdi Belhoucine could not "ignore the significance" of the departure of Hayat Boumeddiene whom he escorted and this "without a religious husband" estimate the examining magistrates.

An exfiltration carefully prepared with Coulibaly and which justified the dismissal of the cadet Belhoucine before the special assize court.

Separated from his brother in Syria, investigators were informed in September 2015 of his death.

Wounded in combat, he is said to have died of sepsis.

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• Trial of the January attacks

• Hayat Boumeddiene

• Justice

• Kouachi brothers

• Amédy Coulibaly

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