Islam - Current Day - Charlie Hebdo Trial; Extremely High Terrorism Risk; Muslim Minister Takes Disturbing Stand in Scotland

Suspected accomplices of Charlie Hebdo attackers go on trial in Paris

Trial opens in Paris for 14 suspects accused of helping gunmen attack French magazine and Jewish supermarket in 2015.

Lawyers for the victims enter the courtroom for the opening of the trial [Charles Platiau/Reuters] 

Natasha Butler, Al Jazeera

Fourteen people have gone on trial in Paris on charges of assisting the gunmen who attacked the weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket five years ago, leaving 17 people dead.

Only 11 of the suspected accomplices appeared in the packed courtroom on Wednesday to face charges of conspiracy in a terrorist act or association with a terror group - the other three fled to territory controlled by ISIL (ISIS) in Syria or Iraq before the January 2015 attacks on the publication's offices and the supermarket in the French capital.

The three attackers were shot dead by police in separate stand-offs.

Al Jazeera's Natasha Butler, reporting from Paris, said the trial will be "very closely watched" in France until it wraps up in November.

"The attacks shocked so many people, prompting an enormous outpouring of grief," she added.

Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication infamous for its irreverence and accused by critics of racism, was targeted after publishing derogatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Twelve people, including some of France's most celebrated cartoonists, were shot dead when French brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed its offices in eastern Paris on January 7, 2015. The attackers also killed a police officer as they left the scene.

A day later, Amedy Coulibaly, who had become close to Cherif Kouachi while they were in prison, killed a 27-year-old police officer, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, during a traffic check in Montrouge, outside Paris.

Then on January 9, Coulibaly killed four men during a hostage-taking at the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket.

The perpetrators of the attacks had links with al-Qaeda and ISIL. Coulibaly was killed when police stormed the supermarket. The Kouachi brothers were killed when officers carried out a nearly simultaneous operation at a printing shop where they were holed up in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris.

Caricatures reprinted

Over the next two-and-a-half months, the court will hear from some 150 experts and witnesses. 

The suspected accomplices face charges including financing terrorism, membership in a terrorist organisation and supplying weapons to the attackers.

The defendants tried in absentia include Hayat Boumedienne, Coulibaly's partner at the time of the attacks, and brothers Mohamed and Mehdi Belhoucine.  

As the court proceedings got underway, Charlie Hebdo reprinted in its Wednesday issue the hugely controversial caricatures that stirred outrage in the Muslim world when they were first published nearly a decade before the attacks. Physical depictions of the prophet are forbidden in Islam and deeply offensive to Muslims. 

"We will never lie down. We will never give up," director Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau, who was wounded in the attack, wrote in an editorial published on Wednesday.

The publication of the cartoons drew fresh condemnation from Pakistan's foreign ministry, which said the decision to print them again was "deeply offensive".

But French President Emmanuel Macron defended the "freedom to blaspheme" and paid tribute to the victims of the attack.

"A president of France should never judge the editorial choice of a journalist or editorial staff because there is freedom of the press which is rightly cherished," he said on a visit to Beirut, Lebanon.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex wrote in a Twitter post: "Always Charlie".

The 2015 attacks prompted a rally of solidarity in Paris at the time, drawing more than four million people, many holding signs with the slogan "I Am Charlie."

Dozens of world leaders and statespeople also linked arms in a march under high security to pay tributes to the victims of the attacks.

France's terrorism risk remains 'extremely high', says minister

French security authorities are monitoring more than 8,000 people suspected of terrorist leanings, the interior minister says. His warning comes ahead of a trial of 14 suspected helpers in deadly attacks in 2015.

    

Police standing guard at the Eiffel Tower in2015 (Getty Images/AFP/B. Guay)

France has a terrorism watchlist of 8,132 potentially violent individuals, the country's interior minister warned on Monday, two days before the trial opens of 14 people accused of links to jihadi attacks in January 2015 in which 17 died.

The threat of terrorist attacks "remains extremely high in the country," Gerald Darmanin said during a visit to the DGSI, France's domestic security service.

"The risk of terror of Sunni origin is the main threat our country is facing," he said, adding that 32 planned terrorist attacks had been foiled since 2017.

At the same time, the minister said there were troubling signs of far-right activity in the country as well.

Of course, far-right groups appear when the government is too far to the left. It's a backlash against #PCMadness as everyone but the government can see where the increasing numbers of Muslims is taking French society. One of the great cultures of the world is rapidly eroding.

France suffered a series of major Islamist attacks in 2015 and 2016, most of them claimed by the extremist group "Islamic State." More than 250 people were killed.

Darmanin said determining which people on the list pose an actual threat was a "very difficult and delicate task". 

I don't think so! If they are devout Sunni Muslims, they are capable of being triggered at the drop of a hat, or the publication of a cartoon.

Not just 'little helpers'

Darbanin's remarks come two days before the trial opens in Paris of 14 alleged accomplices in a spate of attacks from January 7 to 9 starting with an assault on the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. 

Other linked attacks were the shooting of a policewoman and the siege of a Jewish supermarket. Altogether 17 people were killed in the attacks in the Ile de France region around Paris.

The suspects are to be tried on several charges, including terrorist conspiracy and complicity in murder.

National anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said on Monday that the suspects were not being tried as "little helpers."

"It is about individuals who are involved in the logistics, the preparation of the events, who provided means of financing, operational material, weapons, a residence," he told France Info radio, adding that such things were "essential to the terrorist action."

Darmanin, in his turn, called the upcoming trial "historic."

Something startling at the end of this report,

goes unspoken by the Guardian

Independent review finds gaps in supervision of released terrorists

PA Media

File picture of a prisoner. The report was commissioned after a terrorist who was out on licence from prison killed two people near London Bridge last year. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

Authorities have been criticised after an independent review of terrorism legislation found gaps in the monitoring of people convicted of terrorism-related offences in England and Wales.

The report, by Jonathan Hall QC, was commissioned after the convicted terrorist Usman Khan, who was released on licence from prison, killed two people near London Bridge on 29 November.

The report, which examined the multi-agency public protection arrangements (Mappa), was completed in May and published on Wednesday.

Hall said meetings of different agencies including the police, the prison service and probation officers, were “dominated by information exchange rather than active management” of cases.

He was also critical of HM Prison and Probation Service of England and Wales for using a risk-assessment tool he said “seriously minimised” the severity of terrorism offences.

Hall called for a cultural shift in how authorities shared information over those convicted of terrorism, noting there was “surprisingly limited” local knowledge about such offenders among police.

The report made 45 recommendations, with the Home Office minister Chris Philp saying in a written ministerial statement: “Jonathan Hall found that Mappa is a well-established process and did not conclude that wholesale change is necessary.

“He has made a number of recommendations on how the management of terrorists can be improved and the government, police and Prison and Probation Service have been working on changes in line with many of them.”

Among the recommendations was a requirement for terrorists to undergo polygraph testing, with Philp saying the government was “already legislating” the measure.

The counter-terrorism and sentencing bill is viewed by the government as the largest overhaul of sentencing and monitoring in decades. It includes a minimum 14-year jail term for the most dangerous terrorists, who will also have to spend up to 25 years on licence after their release.

But Scotland is reportedly blocking the introduction of the polygraph measure.

UK ministers have to seek a legislative consent motion giving permission from Scottish ministers to amend Scottish law, because terrorism falls under the devolved issue of justice.

The Scottish Justice Secretary, Humza Yousaf, rejected a request from the UK government to implement polygraph tests for terrorists because he was “unconvinced by the policy merits” of its use in Scotland, according to the Sun.

I have been watching for many years now, how increasing numbers of Muslims might be affecting European politics. There is no doubt that politicians tend to be a little more anti-semitic especially in areas where there are large numbers of Muslims. 

We have had Muslim ministers in some countries and they are usually very good ministers - Savid Javid, for instance. But here we seem to have a case where a Muslim minister in Scotland is preventing the passage of a bill that would aid in the fight against terrorism. Since 90-95% of terrorism is committed by Muslims, it would seem a conflict of interest for a Muslim minister to stand in the way of reducing terrorism.

Am I out-to-lunch here, or is this disturbing?