"They want to terrorize us and we have to respond."
At the trial of the January 2015 attacks, Charlie Hebdo's lawyer called on Friday, December 4, not to "renounce" freedom and cartoons, during a vibrant tribute to the missing cartoonists.
"The cartoons are not guilty. What is guilty is barbarism, and nothing else," hammered Richard Malka, the last of the civil party lawyers to address the Special Assize Court of Paris, after five days of pleadings.
"We cannot renounce the free criticism of religions. It would be renouncing our history, our reason. It would be renouncing the indomitable human freedom, renouncing this wonderful right to piss off God!" he warned, during a plea for impertinence and the spirit of freedom.
Historical lawyer of the satirical weekly and close friend of several cartoonists killed during the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Richard Malka claims to still suffer, five years later, from the "absence" of his companions, and in particular of the cartoonist Charb, who "inspired her every day".
Me Malka: "My last words will be for Charb. And I wanted Denise and Michel to be present because I wanted to tell them that their son was magical. And that when you are fed up, when you want to 'giving up the fight, we think of Charb, Charlie will live!
- Charlotte Piret (@ChPiret) December 4, 2020
"Symbolic dimension" of the trial
On January 7, 2015, twelve people were killed under the bullets of brothers Saïd and Cherif Kouachi in the premises of Charlie Hebdo.
This attack, coordinated with the attack on the Hyper Cacher by Amedy Coulibaly two days later, sowed fear in France and the world.
Fourteen people were referred to the Special Assize Court, three of whom are judged by default, because of their alleged logistical support to the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly, killed by the police.
The trial, which opened on September 2, is scheduled to end on December 16.
What meaning should be given to this trial, qualified as "historic", but where the absence of the perpetrators of the attacks has constantly hovered over the debates?
For Richard Malka, the role of the court should not be only to try the accused but to take into account the "symbolic dimension" of the trial.
"This trial was epic, tragic, eventful, sometimes romantic ... It sparked the fury of the world, from Turkey to Pakistan via Afghanistan", recalls the lawyer, referring to the demonstrations sparked by the republication caricatures on the first day of the hearing.
Me Malka: "These terrorists tell us about your assize courts, your laws, we don't care. They tell us with a chopper and a knife, we will bend 60 million inhabitants. And the question is that. is to know what we answer them ".
- Charlotte Piret (@ChPiret) December 4, 2020
During the trial, "a teacher" was also "cut in two, sorry for these horrible words, but it is the sad reality", insists Richard Malka, referring to the murder on October 16 of Samuel Paty, beheaded after showing caricatures of Muhammad to his students.
In this context, "this trial cannot be a trial like any other," insists the lawyer.
"A crime of indifference, of convenience"
In the courtroom, where many survivors and relatives of victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack took their places, including Charb's mother, former director of the publication, a heavy silence settled.
In the box, the accused also listen, motionless.
Questioned during long weeks, these delinquents already convicted several times for common law cases, but never for terrorism, all denied having heard of anything, by multiplying muddled explanations and omissions.
Deliberate defense strategy?
"I will not comment on the guilt of the men who are behind this box. But for me, those of them who knew Coulibaly all committed a crime, which is nowhere in the Penal Code: a crime of 'indifference, complacency ", laments Me Malka.
Amedy Coulibaly, the killer of the Hyper Cacher, was indeed "anti-Semitic for years, deeply, and it was inevitably visible", believes the lawyer, for whom the accused "did not want to see".
The attorney general's requisitions will take place Monday and Tuesday, before the defense pleadings.
With AFP
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