World

Charlie Hebdo to Republish Controversial Prophet Mohammed Cartoons to Mark Start of Terror Trial

The French satirical weekly was attacked by Islamist gunmen in January 2015. Twelve people, including prominent cartoonists, were killed in the attack.
Sputnik

The Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine said on Tuesday that it was republishing its cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to mark the beginning of the trial of alleged accomplices in the attack.

"We will never lie down. We will never give up," its director Laurent 'Riss' Sourisseau wrote in an editorial that will go with the republication, according to the Daily Mail.

Twelve people, among them some of France's most celebrated cartoonists, were killed and eleven more injured on 7 January 2015, when two Islamists, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, armed with rifles, came to the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris and attacked the people inside. The gunmen reportedly said they belonged to the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which later took responsibility for the attack, citing the motive as "revenge for the honour" of the Prophet Mohammed. 

Charlie Hebdo to Republish Controversial Prophet Mohammed Cartoons to Mark Start of Terror Trial

On 8 January, an acquaintance of Cherif Kouachi, Amedy Coulibaly, killed a female police officer. On 9 January, he killed four Jewish men at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.

All three attackers were killed by police in separate standoffs.

The trial of fourteen alleged accomplices in the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the French policewoman and the Jewish supermarket, will take place in Paris from 2 September to 10 November 2020.

Discuss