The trial of the January 2015 attacks is suspended until Tuesday inclusive, the main accused, Ali Riza Polat having tested positive for the coronavirus, we learned from a lawyer on Saturday. 

"The symptoms of the latter having appeared from last Wednesday, the hearing will be suspended, as it is until Tuesday, November 3 inclusive, with regard to health requirements requiring a period of isolation of seven days", according to a e-mail from the president of the special assize court Régis de Jorna sent to all defense and civil party lawyers.  

The nine other accused detained must be tested and "the resumption of the trial will depend on the results of these tests and the evolution of the state of health of the people concerned", specified Mr. de Jorna. 

On Wednesday afternoon, the debates had already been suspended after Ali Riza Polat's discomfort.

Taken from vomiting, he had been sent back to a remand center to see a doctor but the trial was able to resume on Thursday morning. 

The president called on "everyone to respect the rules of social distancing".

"The pleadings will be done with a mask" and "the mask must be worn correctly", he insisted.   

A disrupted schedule 

This suspension of the hearing for at least two days should disrupt the schedule initially set with, at the beginning of the week, the end of the pleadings of the civil parties, which began Thursday afternoon, and the indictment of the advocates general, scheduled for Wednesday after- noon and Thursday.  

Defense lawyers were scheduled to plead on November 6, 9, 10 and 11.

The verdict was expected on Friday, November 13 at the end of the morning.  

Fourteen people, including three by default, have been tried since September 2 by the special assize court for their support for the jihadist trio which sowed terror from January 7 to 9, 2015. 

Presented as the "right arm" of Amédy Coulibaly, a native like him from the city of Grande Borne in Grigny (Essonne), Ali Riza Polat is suspected of having helped the killer of Hyper Cacher and the brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi to prepare for the attacks. 

This 35-year-old Franco-Turkish is the only one of the defendants present on trial for "complicity" in terrorist crimes, punishable by life imprisonment.  

The attacks against Charlie Hebdo, the police and the Hyper Cacher had left 17 dead and raised an international shock wave. 

For more than two months of trial, nearly 150 witnesses and experts have taken the stand for this historic trial, filmed for the archives of justice, a first in the field of terrorism, and under very high police surveillance.   

With AFP 

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