France convicts 14 accomplices in 2015 attacks

A panel of judges pronounced an Islamic State gunman’s widow and 13 others guilty in the devastating 2015 attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. The three-month trial wrapped up on Wednesday in Paris. The 2015 attacks over three days left 17 people dead, plus the three gunmen.

Who stood trial? Eleven friends and criminal acquaintances appeared in court in France on charges they helped in the attacks, while three others were tried in absentia. The widow, Hayat Boumeddiene, fled to Syria just before the killings, and officials believe she is still alive. She received a 30-year sentence. Ali Riza Polat, who is accused of working closely with the gunman at the market, faces a similarly long sentence. The rest received shorter imprisonments. France suffered three terrorist attacks over the course of the trial—a knifing outside the Charlie Hebdo offices, the beheading of a French school teacher, and an attack at a church in Nice that killed three.

Dig Deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Mindy Belz’s report on how the world responded to the 2015 attacks.