France: Appeals court renders amended rulings in Charlie Hebdo trial

A French appeals court has issued amended sentences against two defendants involved in the terrorist attack on the Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015.

France Info channel reported that Alireza Polat was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for providing assistance in terrorism-related crimes.

Polat had received a 30-year prison sentence in his first trial at the end of 2020.

The court reduced another defendant's prison sentence from 20 to 13 years.

Seventeen people died in the January 2015 attacks.

At that time, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi opened fire on the magazine's editorial office, resulting in a bloodbath.

The attacks did not stop after the attack on the editors of Charlie Hebdo, as another attack took place on a "kosher" Jewish food store in Paris.

At that time, the security forces killed the three perpetrators of the attack.

Prior to the attack, the two brothers said they had acted on behalf of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, to avenge the newspaper's decision to publish caricatures offensive to the Islamic religion.

In 2020, 11 people were tried on charges of aiding in the attack, eventually receiving sentences ranging from four years to life in prison.

Polat is considered the right arm of the killer Amedy Coulibaly, who shot a policeman and killed four hostages in the shop that was robbed.

According to the court, Bulat helped Coulibaly in a specific and detailed manner.

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