(Reuters) 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.
Homegrown militants Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris, spraying gunfire, on Jan. 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.
