The deliberation of the Special Assize Court of Paris chaired by Régis de Jorna is expected, Wednesday, December 16 at 4 p.m., after three months of trial where the alleged supporters of the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulabaly, perpetrators of the terrorist attacks, appeared. January 2015 against Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher.

While the prosecution asked for sentences "at the height of the extreme gravity of the facts", going up to life imprisonment, the defense urged the court not to seek "at all costs" for culprits to alleviate the absence of the three terrorists shot dead by the security forces.

Brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, who died on January 9, 2015 after killing 17 people and sowing terror in France, were "nothing" without the defendants, supported the attorneys general by calling for sentences ranging from five years from imprisonment to life imprisonment.

Thirty years required against the companion of Amedy Coulibaly

The heaviest penalties were called for against two alleged "accomplices" in the attacks: Mohamed Belhoucine, tried by default after his departure for Syria, and Ali Riza Polat, presented as the "centerpiece" of the preparatory acts.

Thirty years of criminal imprisonment were required against Amedy Coulibaly's fleeing companion, Hayat Boumeddiene, and twenty years against Mehdi Belhoucine, who had helped her to leave, both also tried in their absence.

From five to twenty years in prison have been requested against the ten other defendants present, suspected of having provided weapons or equipment "with full knowledge of the jihadist commitment" of the perpetrators of the attacks, according to the attorneys general .

"They are the linchpin, the backbone" of the attacks, the magistrates said.

In their last words on Monday, before the court withdrew to deliberate after 54 days of debate, these men aged 29 to 68, all already convicted of crimes but never for acts related to terrorism, again affirmed n 'have "nothing to do" with the attacks.

"A file that oozes fear"

The defendants' lawyers have for five days begged the court "not to give in to fear" by looking for "culprits at all costs", in a context of terrorist threat at the highest level.

Three attacks have struck France since the opening of the trial on September 2, including one near the former premises of Charlie Hebdo.

Faced with the shock wave and the trauma created by the attacks of January 7, 8 and 9, 2015, the first of a long and bloody series in France, the response must be that of "exemplary justice, not bloodthirsty", advocated one of the defense lawyers, Zoé Royaux.

"It is a file which oozes fear and unreason. I believe that when one is too afraid, justice becomes the worst of itself", underlined her colleague Margot Pugliese.

Shadow areas

After the powerful testimonies of the survivors of the attacks and the relatives of the 17 victims, the court tried for several weeks to piece together the puzzle of the investigation that led the 14 defendants to the assizes, mainly on the basis of telephone records and some traces. DNA.

But the debates did not make it possible to remove all the gray areas, from the arms circuit to the sponsors.

In these gray areas, "assumed" by the prosecution which rejected the responsibility on the attitude and the reversals of the defendants, the defense rushed in, denouncing a file full of "hypotheses" but "empty" of evidence.

Investigators have identified two supply "channels" for the weapons found in the possession of Amedy Coulibaly: one "Lille" and the other "Belgian-Ardennes".

But nothing has been established concerning the weapons of war used by the Kouachi brothers.

And how the arsenal passed and then landed in the hands of terrorists remains unclear.

Some 200 people became civil parties in the trial, the first in terrorism matters to be fully filmed for the historical archives of justice.

Originally scheduled to end on November 10, the trial was suspended more than a month after the main defendant, Ali Riza Polat, tested positive for Covid-19 and then suffered medical complications.

With AFP

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