the verdict expected on the day of March 9

The perpetrators of Father Hamel’s assassination had been killed by the police on leaving the church. Four men are now on trial for their involvement. “With a main issue, how to judge people who had only a secondary role in the attack? They didn’t kill anyone, they weren’t there that day.”indicates the journalist Hugo Puffeney, in duplex from the Palais de Justice in Paris, Wednesday March 9.

The mastermind of the attacks and Islamic State recruiter, Rachid Kassim, is “probably died in Iraq” and therefore absent at trial. The defendants present are being tried for “terrorist association of criminals”and not for “complicity”. The prosecution asked for sentences ranging from 7 to 14 years in prison. “But the Advocate General recalled it well in his argument yesterday, these defendants are not scapegoats judged for example. They were radicalized, they associated with terrorists, and the verdict is expected during the day.“, concludes the journalist.