France court convicts accomplices in Paris terrorist attacks News
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France court convicts accomplices in Paris terrorist attacks

A French court convicted 14 people on Wednesday as the accomplices of the Islamic extremists who carried out the 2015 terrorist attacks against the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish market. The Paris judges found the defendants guilty of various crimes including, financing terrorism, membership in a criminal network, and complicity in the assaults.

The assaults took place in January 2015 and were primarily led by three identified gunmen. Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed Charlie Hebdo’s offices and killed 12 people. The brothers targeted the magazine after it had published cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed. The third assailant, Amedy Coulibaly, killed five people the same day after an attack on a kosher supermarket. All three men were killed during confrontations with the police.

The trial of those charged with assisting the three gunmen began in September. Eleven of the 14 accused were present during the trial, while the three others were tried in absentia after having fled the country. Prosecutors alleged that the 14 defendants aided the primary attackers with “money, vehicles, and other logistical support.” One of the accused, Ali Riza Polat, was sentenced to life in prison for aiding and abetting Coulibaly in his attack on the supermarket. Seven other defendants were found guilty of lesser crimes.

Among the three sentenced accomplices who were missing from the trial was Hayat Boumedienne. Boumedienne was sentenced to 30 years in prison for belonging to a terrorist organization and financing terrorism. At the trial, prosecutors identified her as the former wife of Coulibaly and believed that she fled to Syria days before the attacks.

Paris’s Mayor Anne Hidalgo released a statement after Wednesday’s ruling stating, “[j]ustice was served.”

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