A court in France has convicted 14 people in relation to the January 2015 terror attacks in Paris on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.
A total of 17 people were murdered across three days in a series of attacks that horrified the nation. All three assailants were killed in shootouts with the police, leaving only accomplices to face trial.
The defendants were found guilty on different charges, ranging from membership of a criminal network to complicity in the attacks. Terrorism-related charges were dropped for several of the defendants who were found guilty of lesser crimes.
Ali Riza Polat, who was described as a “linchpin” in the organisation of the attacks, was found guilty of complicity by helping the gunmen obtain weapons and ammunition.
The verdicts were announced by Régis de Jorna, the president of the special assize court panel of five judges, after a hearing lasting 54 days that put 11 people in the dock and tried three in their absence.
At 11.30am on 7 January 2015, brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi forced their way into the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris’s central 11th arrondissement.
They killed nine newspaper staff, as well as a building maintenance worker and a police officer. As they fled to a getaway vehicle, they stopped to kill a second police officer who was lying injured on the pavement. In a chilling scene captured on video, one of the brothers, hooded and dressed in black, strolled up to Ahmed Merabet and shot him at close range. Then they disappeared.
