January 2015 attacks: appeal in cassation of Ali Riza Polat, sentenced to life imprisonment

Europe1 .fr with AFP 1:53 p.m., October 27, 2022

Ali Riza Polat, sentenced on appeal to life imprisonment for complicity in the January 2015 attacks against Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher, has appealed, we learned Thursday from his lawyers.  

"He appealed in cassation," Ms. Moad Nefati and Rachid Madid told AFP.

On October 20, after a six-week hearing, the Paris Special Assize Court ruling on appeal sentenced the 37-year-old Franco-Turk to life imprisonment, with a twenty-year security period. . 

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Convicted of complicity 

She found him guilty of complicity in the seventeen murders perpetrated by the brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly between January 7 and 9, 2015 at the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, in Montrouge and at Hyper Cacher. 

"For the court, there is no doubt (...) that Ali Riza Polat was indeed guilty, (...) in full knowledge of the facts, of complicity in acts of terrorism committed in a concerted manner by the brothers Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, by providing the latter with permanent assistance in the preparation of his acts and in the gathering of the means to commit them", motivated the judges. 

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At first instance, in December 2020, the court had not followed the prosecution's requisitions and pronounced a sentence of thirty years' imprisonment against Ali Riza Polat.

The latter, who has always claimed that he was "not a terrorist", had appealed. 

Tried again alongside Ali Riza Polat and sentenced to thirteen years' imprisonment, including two thirds of security, for having provided weapons to Amedy Coulibaly, Amar Ramdani did not lodge an appeal in cassation.

The prosecution had requested twenty years in prison against him.