Ali Riza Polat, for “complicity”, and Amar Ramdani, for “Association of terrorist criminals”, had been sentenced to thirty and twenty years in prison at first instance.
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Two years after the first, the second trial of the January 2015 attacks opens Monday September 12 before the Paris Assize Court. From one audience to another, the decor has changed – the debates leave the new Paris court, Porte de Clichy, for the old palace, on the island of the city -, and the box of the accused emptied .
Only two of the eleven condemned at first instance appealed, those against whom the heaviest sentences had been pronounced: Ali Riza Polat, 37, sentenced to thirty years in prison – perpetuity had been required – for “complicity assassinations “; Amar Ramdani, 41, sentenced to twenty years for “Association of terrorist criminals”. The professional magistrates of the specially composed court of assize have six weeks to study the role of the latter in the preparation of the attacks committed by the brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi and by Amedy Coulibaly.
On January 7, 2015, the first two went to the premises of Charlie Hebdo, in the 11 e arrondissement of Paris, and had fatally pulled eight members of the editorial staff – Cabu, Elsa Cayat, Charb, Honoré, Bernard Maris, Mustapha Ourrad, Tignous, Wolinski -, the police officer responsible for the protection of Charb, Franck Brinsororo, as well as a visitor passing that day, Michel Renaud. Arriving, the Kouachi brothers first killed Frédéric Boisseau, maintenance agent. In their flight, they had shot the police Ahmed Merabet. Their rider ended two days later, on January 9, under the shots of the intervention group of the National Gendarmerie, in front of the printing of Dammartin-en-Goële (Seint-et-Marne), where they were entrenched.
“We doubt to learn much more”
This same January 9, Amedy Coulibaly, close to the Kouachi brothers, had targeted the Hyper Cache store on the Porte de Vincennes, in the east of Paris, where he had murdered an employee, Yohan Cohen, and three customers , Philippe Braham, François-Michel Saada and Yoav Hattab. He had been shot dead by the police of the research and intervention brigade after retaining eighteen people hostage for four hours. The day before, he had killed a policewoman, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, in faction in the streets of Montrouge (Hauts-de-Seine).
In its verdict in December 2020, the court underlined the “constant presence” and the “particularly active and transversal” role of Ali Riza Polat alongside Amedy Coulibaly – with whom he was still on January 6, 2015 – In particular in the search for an apartment, weapons and explosives. Despite his virulent denials, the judges had estimated that this Franco-Turkish, originally from Grigny (Essonne) as Amedy Coulibaly, had, “in a concrete and detailed way, provided a decisive logistical aid, allowing the latter to ‘Set of his criminal actions “. For his part, the defense of Amar Ramdani will plead, as at first instance, the acquittal of the one who had become friends with Amedy Coulibaly in detention, at Villepinte prison (Seine-Saint-Denis), and against whom the judges judges had retained “undeniable and decisive logistical support” to the terrorist, in particular for the search for weapons.
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