(Radio France) The main defendant in France’s Charlie Hebdo trial on Monday again denied all involvement in the January 2015 attacks as he appeared before Paris’s Special Assize Court.
Ali Riza Polat, who is one of 14 people being tried, told judges he would not be their scapegoat. “You absolutely want a culprit, but it’s not going to be me,” he said.
[Polat] is the only defendant accused of “complicity in terrorist crimes.” He faces life in prison for his alleged role in the murders [of] 12 Charlie Hebdo staff, a female police officer, and four men in a hostage taking at a Jewish supermarket.
Polat, who is suspected of having been the “right-hand man” of supermarket killer Amédy Coulibaly, denies supplying weapons to both Coulibaly and brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, who carried out the assault on the satirical newspaper.
