Five years after "Charlie", the trial of the January 2015 attacks opens in Paris - France 24

Paris (AFP)

The attacks, of extreme violence, had sown fear and consternation in France and abroad: waited for five years, the trial of the jihadist attacks of Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher opens Wednesday in Paris under very close surveillance.

To mark the opening of the trial, Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons of Muhammad who had made him a target of the jihadists.

"A courageous choice, a worthy choice (...) a very strong affirmation of their freedom of expression, of their refusal of intimidation", greeted Christophe Deloire, the president of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in front of the court, to AFP.

Fourteen people are being prosecuted, suspected in varying degrees of logistical support to the Saïd and Chérif Kouachi brothers and to Amédy Coulibaly, perpetrators of the killings which left 17 dead, between January 7 and 9, 2015.

The trial, initially scheduled before the summer, had been postponed due to the health crisis.

It will be fully filmed for the constitution of historical archives of justice - a first in terrorism.

This trial has "a double interest": "to approach the truth" and to offer "a moment of expression" to the victims, insisted the national antiterrorist prosecutor Jean-François Ricard.

Sign of the importance given to this cathartic approach: the first weeks of 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.

"This trial," said Mr. Deloire Wednesday morning, "has an immediate judicial virtue, which is to do justice to victims and families. And a broader virtue, which is to send a signal to the whole world. on the protection of freedom of expression. It is the pressure of freedom on religious intolerance ".

Visiting Beirut, President Emmanuel Macron defended Tuesday evening "the freedom to blaspheme" in France, "attached to freedom of conscience".

"Tomorrow we will all have a thought for the cowardly slaughtered women and men" in January 2015, he added.

- Three accused absent -

On January 7, 2015, the Kouachi brothers attacked the Charlie Hebdo editorial staff with a weapon of war, murdering 12 people, including historical cartoonists Cabu and Wolinski, before fleeing.

The next day, Amédy Coulibaly - who had rubbed shoulders with Chérif Kouachi in prison - killed a municipal police officer in Montrouge, near Paris.

A day later, he executed four men, all of them Jews, during the hostage-taking of the Hyper Cacher store at Porte de Vincennes, in Paris.

This murderous journey ended with the death of the three jihadists during a double police assault, carried out almost simultaneously at the Hyper Cacher and in a printing press in Dammartin-en-Goële (Seine-et-Marne) where Charlie's killers Hebdo had retreated.

These attacks sparked outrage around the world.

A few days later, on January 11, a demonstration of historic proportions brought together 1.5 million people in the streets of Paris, led by dozens of heads of state and government from all over the planet.

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.

However, three of them will 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-terrorist judges have retained 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 in prison.

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 persons responsible will not be present, and cannot account. For this, justice will be put to a heavy test", recalls Me Safya Akorri, lawyer of 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 despite everything "lost" in their desire to "divide the French".

© 2020 AFP