Trial of Charlie Hebdo attack accomplices begins

Fourteen alleged accomplices to the Islamist gunmen who attacked the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015 went on trial on Wednesday, as the country recalled a dark episode that marked the onset of a wave of militant violence.

On Jan. 7, 2015, Said and Cherif Kouachi, armed with automatic weapons, went on the rampage in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, whose satire on race, religion and politics tested the limits of what society would accept in the name of free speech. They killed 12 people in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda.

The next day, Amedy Coulibaly, an acquaintance of Cherif Kouachi, shot dead a female police officer. On Jan 9, he killed four Jewish men at a kosher supermarket. In a video, he said he acted in the name of Islamic State.

The three were killed by police in different stand-offs.

Eleven of the 14 defendants appeared in courtroom and told the presiding judge they would answer the court's questions. Three are being tried in absentia.

The defendants face charges ranging from supplying weapons and logistical help to financing terrorism and membership of a terrorist organisation.

More than 250 people have been killed in France in Islamist violence since the attacks, which laid bare France's struggle to counter the threat of homegrown militants and foreign jihadists.

Meanwhile, Charlie Hebdo re-ran a series of cartoons yesterday depicting a very sensitive topic for Muslims that triggered the 2015 attacks.

Charlie Hebdo's no-taboo journalism has for years divided France. Egypt's highest Muslim authority Al-Azhar, Pakistan condemned the decision. Christophe Deloire, head of global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, said it was an act of courage and a rejection of intimidation.

President Emmanuel Macron said France would remember those killed.

"Satire is not a discourse of hate," the president told a news conference in Beirut.