Charlie Hebdo attackers killed to avenge Prophet Mohammad, French court hears
- Trial begins for suspects in 2015 attacks that left 12 dead
- Gunman stormed office of French satirical magazine nearly a decade after it published cartoons mocking the Prophet
The Islamist gunmen who attacked the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo five years ago, killing 12 people, sought to avenge the Prophet Mohammad, a French court heard on Wednesday on the first day of the trial of more than a dozen alleged accomplices.
Home-grown militants Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris, spraying gunfire, on January 7, 2015, nearly a decade after the weekly published cartoons mocking the Prophet.
They paused to ensure then editor Stephane Charbonnier was among the dead, the presiding judge said in a precis of the prosecution’s case. In court, the magazine’s editor, Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, listened, his head bowed and eyes closed.
Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate praised the Kouachi brothers for “killing those who are among the worst enemies of the Prophet, and of Islam,” said Regis de Jorna, the presiding judge.
A third attacker, Amedy Coulibaly, killed a police woman and then four Jewish hostages in a kosher supermarket in a Paris suburb. Like the Kouachis, Coulibaly was killed in a shoot-out with police.