Islamic State killer’s wife among fourteen on trial for Paris attacks

Thirteen men and a Islamic State killer’s wife went on trial yesterday over the 2015 terror attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Eleven of them appeared at France’s terrorism court accused of buying weapons, cars and helping with logistics. The other three, including the accused woman Hayat Boumedienne, are being tried in absentia after fleeing to Syria.

Most say they thought they were helping to plan an ordinary crime.

The Charlie Hebdo atrocity, carried out on January 7, 2015, came after the satirical magazine published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi gunned down 12 people in the name of Daesh before hijacking a car and fleeing. Two days later, Amedy Coulibaly — also blamed for the death of a policewoman 24 hours earlier — stormed the Hyper Cacher supermarket, killing four hostages. Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers — who were all well known to French security services — died in police raids later the same day.

The attacks were seen as a massive intelligence failure. And yesterday one the defence barristers told the court that they would not have happened ‘if the intelligence services had done their job’.

The trial opened under tight security. At nearby news stands, the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo appeared, defiantly reprinting the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

‘The trial will establish and confirm that the attacks were coordinated — one was an attack on freedom of expression and the other against Jews,’ former president Francois Hollande told RTL.

Source: Metro