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December 2020 court drawing of Ali Riza Polat (without a mask), who was sentenced to life imprisonment on appeal
Photo: BENOIT PEYRUCQ / AFP
A good seven and a half years after the Islamist terrorist attack on the satirical magazine »Charlie Hebdo« in Paris, an appeals court has imposed heavy sentences on two suspects.
Ali Riza Polat, 37, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for aiding and abetting terrorism-related crimes.
At the end of 2020, he had received a prison sentence of 30 years in a first trial.
Another defendant, 41-year-old Amar Ramdani, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the time, has now been sentenced to 13 years.
The January 2015 attacks killed 17 people, including France's best-known cartoonists and four French Jews.
At the time, the brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi opened fire in the satirical newspaper's editorial office, causing a bloodbath.
The attacks not only hit the editors of Charlie Hebdo, but also a kosher supermarket in Paris.
The three perpetrators were then shot dead by security forces.
Eleven alleged helpers were tried in autumn 2020 and ultimately received prison sentences of between four years and life imprisonment.
Polat was considered the right-hand man of the assassin Amédy Coulibaly, who shot dead a policewoman and killed four hostages in the supermarket after the store was robbed.
According to the court, he decisively helped Coulibaly in a concrete and detailed way.
Polat denied knowing about the attack plans.
However, according to the court's conviction, he procured weapons for Coulibaly, whom he had met in prison, and helped finance the attack.
There were around 300 joint plaintiffs at the trial.
Of the nine men convicted at first instance, only Polat and Ramdani appealed.
The two had been sentenced to 30 and 20 years in prison in the first instance.
jso/dpa/AFP