Former French prime minister Édouard Balladur, 91, is to stand trial on Tuesday on charges he funded his 1995 presidential campaign with secret kickbacks from French arms sales abroad, as part of a scandal that has been dubbed 'the Karachi affair'.
A Paris court on Wednesday handed 14 defendants jail sentences ranging from four years to life imprisonment for their part in helping terrorist gunmen in their shooting massacres over three days in January 2015 at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and of hostages at a Jewish supermarket, and the murder of a trainee policewoman, killing a total of 17 people.
The trial in Paris of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy for allegedly trying to bribe a magistrate in return for information about an investigation into his party finances was suspended shortly after it opened on Wednesday to allow a medical examination of one of the two other defendants.
The trial of 14 people accused of complicity in the January 2015 attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and which was due to end on November 13th has been suspended after one of the principal suspects, Ali Riza Polat, tested positive for Covid-19.
At the trial in Paris of 14 people accused of aiding the January 2015 terrorist attacks in the capital, Zarie Sibony, 28, gave a harrowing account of the four-hour siege at the kosher store where she worked as a cashier, when Amédy Coulibaly murdered four hostages and, she recalled, told his captives 'You are Jews and French, the two things I hate the most'.
The trial in Paris of 14 people accused of complicity in the separate January 2015 terrorist attacks in the French capital against Charlie Hebdo magazine, a kosher store, and a policewoman, which left 17 victims dead, opened on Wednesday. Absent from the hearings are three defendants whose fate or eventual whereabouts is unknown. In this second of a two-part report, Matthieu Suc details the story of how the three got away, and the evidence that at least one of them is alive and hiding from justice in the Middle East.
The trial of 14 people accused of complicity in the separate January 2015 terrorist attacks in and around the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, against a Jewish food store, and a policewoman, opened in the French capital on Wednesday. The three perpetrators, who murdered a total of 17 people, were themselves shot dead by police. Absent from the hearings are three defendants whose fate or eventual whereabouts is unknown, while others have slipped through the net of the investigations. In this first of a two-part report, Matthieu Suc details the background and chronology of events leading to this marathon trial due to end in November.
The marathon trial of 14 people accused of being accomplices to the terrorist killings of 17 people in separate attacks in early January 2015 on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish food store, and the shooting of a policewoman, opened in Paris on Wednesday and is due to run into November.
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose staff were targeted in a January 2015 shooting massacre which left 12 dead, has announced its edition to be published Wednesday, when 14 people accused of being accomplices to the attack are to stand trial in Paris, will contain a reprint of the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed that were cited as the motive for the terrorists.
Rui Pinto, the whistleblower behind the Football Leaks revelations of corruption and fraud that have rocked the world of professional football, is to stand trial in Portugal on September 4th. The 31-year-old faces 90 charges which carry up to 25 years in prison. But after reaching a cooperation agreement with Portuguese authorities, he is now in a witness protection scheme. Der Spiegel magazine, Mediapart’s partner in the European Investigative Collaborations network which jointly published the Football Leaks investigations, has met with Pinto ahead of his trial.
A total of 14 defendents are to stand trial in Paris beginning next Wednesday on charges related to the murderous January 2015 terrorist shooting attacks in and around the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, at a kosher supermarket and upon a police officer which together claimed the lives of 17 victims.
Two former agents with the French foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, are to go on trial in a closed-door Paris courtroom on Monday accused of 'delivering information to a foreign power' and 'damaging the fundamental interests of the nation'.
A Paris court has handed prison sentences to six men found guilty of organising a vast political funding scam involving kickbacks on French weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The kickbacks, secretly transferred in cash sums, were to finance former French prime minister Édouard Balladur’s 1995 presidential election campaign. The men, who were on Monday given jail terms of between three and five years, include former minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Nicolas Bazire, a senior executive at luxury goods group LVMH. The verdicts end the financial chapter of what has become known as the “Karachi Affair”, an ongoing judicial saga that centres on the murders of 11 French naval engineers in Pakistan in 2002. Karl Laske and Fabrice Arfi report on the conclusions of the sentencing magistrates.
French prosecutors have recommended that the French subsidiary of Swedish home furnishings chain Ikea, several members of its former management and four French police officers should stand trial for their involvement in a system of espionnage targeting company staff and clients.
Two Franco-Israeli men were given jail sentences and heavy fines by a Paris court for masterminding a multi-million-euro fraud using the identity of Jean-Yves Le Drian, who at the time was France’s defence minister and is now the foreign minister, to raise money from wealthy political, business and religious figures.
