PARIS: The fugitive widow of a Daesh gunman and a man described as his logistician were convicted Wednesday of terrorism charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison in the trial of 14 people linked to the January 2015 Paris attacks against the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket.
The verdict ends the three-month trial linked to the three days of killings across Paris claimed jointly by the Daesh group and Al-Qaeda. During the proceedings, France was struck by new attacks, a wave of coronavirus infections among the defendants, and devastating testimony bearing witness to bloodshed that continues to shake France.
Patrick Klugman, a lawyer for the survivors of the market attack, said the verdict sent a message to sympathizers. “We accuse the executioner but ultimately it is worse to be his valet,” he said.
All three attackers died in police raids. The widow, Hayat Boumeddiene, fled to Syria and is believed to still be alive. The two men who spirited her out of France are thought to be dead, although one received a sentence of life in prison just in case and the other was convicted separately.
Eleven others were present and all were convicted of the crime, with sentences ranging from 30 years for Boumeddiene and Ali Riza Polat, described as the lieutenant of the virulently anti-Semitic market attacker, Amédy Coulibaly, to four years with a simple criminal conviction.
The Jan. 7-9, 2015, attacks in Paris left 17 dead along with the three gunmen. The 11 men standing trial formed a loose circle of friends and criminal acquaintances who claimed any facilitating they may have done was unwitting.
One gambled day and night during the three-day period, learning what had happened only after emerging blearily from the casino. Another was a pot-smoking ambulance driver. A third was a childhood friend of the market attacker, who got beaten to a pulp by the latter over a debt.
It was the coronavirus infection of Polat that forced the suspension of the trial for a month.
Polat’s lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, described him as a scapegoat who knew nothing about Coulibaly’s plans. She said he would appeal.
“He knew from the beginning it was a fictional trial,” she said afterward.
In all, investigators sifted through 37 million bits of phone data, according to video testimony by judicial police. Among the men cuffed behind the courtroom’s enclosed stands, flanked by masked and armed officers, were several who had exchanged dozens of texts or calls with Coulibaly in the days leading up to the attack.
Also testifying were the widows of Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, the brothers who stormed Charlie Hebdo’s offices on Jan. 7, 2015, decimating the newspaper’s editorial staff in what they said was an act of vengeance for its publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad years before. The offices had been firebombed before and were unmarked, and editors had round-the-clock protection. But it wasn’t enough.
In all, 12 people died that day. The first was Frédéric Boisseau, who worked in maintenance. Then the Kouachis seized Corinne Rey, a cartoonist who had gone down to smoke, and forced her upstairs to punch in the door code. She watched in horror as they opened fire on the editorial meeting.
“I was not killed, but what happened to me was absolutely chilling and I will live with it until my life is over,” she testified.
The next day, Coulibaly shot and killed a young policewoman after failing to attack a Jewish community center in the suburb of Montrouge. By then, the Kouachis were on the run and France was paralyzed with fear.
Authorities didn’t link the shooting to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo immediately. They were closing in on the Kouachis when the first alerts came of a gunman inside a kosher supermarket. It was a wintry Friday afternoon, and customers were rushing to finish their shopping before the Sabbath when Coulibaly entered, carrying an assault rifle, pistols and explosives. With a GoPro camera fixed to his torso, he methodically fired on an employee and a customer, then killed a second customer before ordering a cashier to close the store’s metal blinds.
The first victim, Yohan Cohen, lay dying on the ground and Coulibaly turned to some 20 hostages and asked if he should “finish him off.” Despite their pleas, Coulibaly fired the killing shot, according to testimony from cashier Zarie Sibony.
“You are Jews and French, the two things I hate the most,” Coulibaly told them.
Some 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, the Kouachi brothers were cornered in a printing shop with their own hostages. Ultimately, all three attackers died in near-simultaneous police raids. It was the first attack in Europe claimed by the Daesh group, which struck Paris again later that year to even deadlier effect.
“This is the end of a trial that’s been crazy, illuminating, painful but which has been useful,” said Richard Malka, a lawyer for Charlie Hebdo.
Prosecutors said the Kouachis essentially self-financed their attack, while Coulibaly and his wife took out fraudulent loans. Boumeddiene, the only woman on trial, fled to Syria days before the attack and appeared in Daesh propaganda.
One witness, the French widow of a Daesh emir, testified from prison that she’d run across Boumeddiene late last year at a camp in Syria and Boumeddiene’s foster sisters said they believed she was still alive. Testifying as a free man after a brief prison term, for reasons both defense attorneys and victims described as baffling, was the far-right sympathizer turned police informant who actually sold the weapons to Coulibaly.
Three weeks into the trial, on Sept. 25, a Pakistani man steeped in radical Islam and armed with a butcher’s knife attacked two people outside Charlie Hebdo’s vacated offices.
Six weeks into the trial, on Oct. 16, a French schoolteacher who opened a debate on free speech by showing students the Muhammad caricatures was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee.
Eight weeks into the trial, on Oct. 30, a young Tunisian armed with a knife and carrying a copy of the Qur’an attacked worshippers in a church in the southern city of Nice, killing three. He had a photo of the Chechen on his phone and an audio message describing France as a “country of unbelievers.”
Daesh gunman’s fugitive widow convicted in 2015 Paris attacks
https://arab.news/ywrvj
Daesh gunman’s fugitive widow convicted in 2015 Paris attacks
- Hayat Boumeddiene was one of 14 people on trial for the attacks
- Satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket were targeted in January 2015
Trump envoy in Russia for talks with Putin about Ukraine
- Steve Witkoff met also with Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy, in St. Petersburg
- Kremlin plays down the planned Witkoff-Putin meeting
MOSCOW: US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff flew to Russia on Friday for talks with President Vladimir Putin about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine, the Kremlin said, saying the two men might also discuss a Trump-Putin meeting.
The Izvestia news outlet released video of Witkoff leaving a hotel in Russia’s second city St. Petersburg, accompanied by Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy.
Witkoff has emerged as a key figure in the on-off rapprochement between Moscow and Washington amid talk on the Russian side of potential joint investments in the Arctic and in Russian rare earth minerals.
Putin was also in St. Petersburg on Friday to hold what the Kremlin called an “extraordinarily important” meeting about the development of the Russian Navy, which is in the throes of a major modernization and expansion drive.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down the planned Witkoff-Putin meeting, telling Russian state media the US envoy’s visit would not be “momentous” and that no breakthroughs were expected.
The meeting will be their third this year and comes at a time when US tensions with Iran and China — two countries with which Russia has close ties — are severely strained over Tehran’s nuclear program and a burgeoning trade war with Beijing.
Witkoff is due in Oman on Saturday for talks with Iran over its nuclear program after Trump threatened Tehran with military action if it does not agree to a deal. Moscow has repeatedly offered its help in trying to clinch a diplomatic settlement.
Putin and Trump have spoken by phone but have yet to meet face-to-face since the US leader returned to the White House in January for a second four-year term.
US and Russian officials said they had made progress during talks in Istanbul on Thursday toward normalizing the work of their diplomatic missions as they begin to rebuild bilateral ties.
However, US-Russia dialogue aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine appears to have stalled over disagreements around the conditions for a full pause in hostilities.
Trump, who has shown signs of losing patience, has spoken of imposing secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a Ukrainian deal.
A February meeting between Witkoff and Putin culminated with the US envoy flying home with Marc Fogel, an American teacher Washington had said was wrongfully detained by Russia.
A Russian-American spa worker Ksenia Karelina, who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison in Russia, was exchanged on Thursday for Arthur Petrov, whom the US had accused of forming a global smuggling ring to transfer sensitive electronics to Russia’s military.
The US lists several Americans — some dual citizens — who are in jail in Russia, including Stephen Hubbard, another teacher whom Washington has officially declared as wrongfully detained.
India’s ‘drone sisters’ navigate change in farming and social roles
- ‘Drone Didi’ program equips women-led self-help groups with drones for agricultural services
- Women say they earn about $150 a month by drone-spraying fertilizer and pesticide on farms
NEW DELHI: Rajveer Kaur enjoys the attention she receives whenever she goes out to the fields to operate her drone. Once a housewife and mother, the 29-year-old is now an independent woman, known in her region as a “drone didi” or “drone sister,” helping fertilize farmland and protect it from pests.
Kaur was working with a self-help group in her village in Faridkot district of Punjab when she was selected to join a government program providing women with drone technology for agricultural services.
“Then the central government gave us drones after giving training for a few weeks. It’s now almost a year since it has happened. I get good responses from the farmers. I also got the name of a woman operating a drone in the field,” she told Arab News.
“I was a housewife before becoming a drone pilot. My husband supports me, and it feels really good that a woman who has been a housewife can now step out and become a productive force.”
She also gets a sense of financial independence and can contribute to her household’s budget, earning on average $150 a month.
“There’s also a message in this — that a woman, even while being a housewife, can earn and become independent. She can show that she can be a pilot too — even if it means a drone pilot,” Kaur said.
“Sometimes farmers bargain, but generally I earn $4 for spraying one acre of land. It takes only five minutes. In the last eight months since I started working as a drone pilot, I’ve earned close to 100,000 rupees (around $1,160).”
She is one of the thousands of women in rural India who joined the government’s scheme to empower women-led self-help groups.
Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2023, the “Drone Didi” program aims to distribute 15,000 drones among the groups by the end of this year.
The 25–30 kg industrial drones are designed for agricultural use — to spray pesticides and fertilizers on farmland.
Kaur’s job involves filling the drones’ canisters with chemicals and then remotely navigating the devices over the fields to spray the crops, covering several hectares a day.
Farmers were initially reluctant, but they soon realized that the method works. Kaur’s neighbor, Manjinder Singh, was one of the first farmers to participate in the program when he sowed his field in December and had five and a half acres of land sprayed by drones.
“That was the first time I got my field sprayed by a drone. It was a new experience. It took less time, and it was very smooth,” he said.
“In terms of cost, I don’t see much difference, but it saved a lot of time and physical effort.”
What convinced farmers to rely on the services of the drone operators is that remote spraying uses much less water and is safer for the crops.
Drone operators do not walk through the fields and do not cause physical damage to the crops. They also reduce the probability of crops being infected.
“Bacterial illnesses do not get transferred from one field to another when you use a drone. You are not carrying the bacteria from one field to another because you’re not physically walking through the fields,” Roopendra Kaur, a 29-year-old drone pilot from Firozpur district, explained.
Her main job is in large fields during the sowing seasons. But in between the seasons, drone operators are active too, only their tasks are smaller — like spraying vegetable fields or chili plantations. Since getting her drone in March last year, she has earned about $1,200.
“We have got a sense of purpose in life and to be a drone didi is really a respectable profession. Farmers were initially hesitant, but they appreciate our work,” Kaur said.
“This was the first time I have stepped out of the house. I have been a housewife all my life and this is my first independent work.”
UN denounces army attacks in Myanmar despite post-quake truce
- Following reports of sporadic clashes even after the March 28 quake that so far is known to have killed at least 3,645 people
- The military air strikes on Pazi Gyi village on April 11 2023 killed at least 155 people, including many children
GENEVA: The United Nations rights office decried Friday attacks by Myanmar’s military despite a ceasefire declared following last month’s devastating earthquake, which killed more than 3,600 people.
“At a moment when the sole focus should be on ensuring humanitarian aid gets to disaster zones, the military is instead launching attacks,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.
UN rights chief Volker Turk, she said, “calls on the military to remove any and all obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian assistance and to cease military operations.”
A multi-sided conflict has engulfed Myanmar since 2021, when Min Aung Hlaing’s military wrested power from the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Following reports of sporadic clashes even after the March 28 quake that so far is known to have killed at least 3,645 people, the junta joined its opponents last week in calling a temporary halt to hostilities for relief to be delivered.
But Shamdasani highlighted that since the earthquake, “military forces have reportedly carried out over 120 attacks.”
“More than half of them (were) after their declared ceasefire was due to have gone into effect on 2 April,” she said.
The UN rights office had determined that most of these involved aerial and artillery strikes, she said, “including in areas impacted by the earthquake.”
“Numerous strikes have been reported in populated areas, many of them appearing to amount to indiscriminate attacks and to breach the principle of proportionality in international humanitarian law.”
Shamdasani pointed out that areas at the epicenter of the quake in Sagaing, particularly those controlled by opponents of the military, “have had to rely on local community responses for search and rescue, and to meet basic needs.”
“Clearly these valiant efforts need to be further supported,” she said, calling for “common efforts to assist those in greatest need.”
“In this spirit we call on the military to announce a full amnesty for detainees it has incarcerated since February 2021, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint.”
The UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) also decried the attacks.
“Even as rescue workers searched for survivors during the devastating earthquake last month, the military continued its air attacks in Mandalay, Sagaing and other regions, killing and injuring civilians,” it said in a statement.
Nicholas Koumjian, head of the investigative team, slammed “the systematic and escalating use of air strikes by the Myanmar military across the country,” which “caused widespread death, destruction and displacement, and has terrorized communities.”
He said Friday marked the two-year anniversary of military strikes in the now quake-hit Sagaing region, which constituted the deadliest single attack in Myanmar since the coup.
The military air strikes on Pazi Gyi village on April 11 2023 killed at least 155 people, including many children.
“Aerial bombardments, including the use of drones and alleged use of chemical weapons, are a grim hallmark of the Myanmar conflict and have increased in frequency since the Pazi Gyi attack,” the IIMM statement said.
Ousted South Korean President Yoon embraces supporters after leaving presidential residence
- Constitutional Court removed him from office over his ill-fated imposition of martial law in December
- Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, returned to their private apartment in affluent southern Seoul
SEOUL: Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol left the presidential residence in Seoul on Friday for his private home, a week after the Constitutional Court removed him from office over his ill-fated imposition of martial law in December.
In recent days, moving trucks were seen driving in and out of the walled presidential compound in the Hannam-dong district, the site of a massive law enforcement operation in January that led to Yoon’s detainment. Yoon, who is facing a criminal trial on rebellion charges, was released from custody in March after a Seoul court canceled his arrest.
Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, along with their 11 dogs and cats, returned to their private apartment in affluent southern Seoul. As his black van arrived at the gate of the presidential compound, Yoon stepped out, smiling and waving to his supporters, shaking hands and embracing dozens of them, before getting back into the vehicle and leaving the site.
Arriving at the apartment complex where his private residence is located, Yoon stepped out of the van again and walked slowly through a crowd of supporters, shaking their hands as they chanted his name, as his wife closely followed.
Dozens of both supporters and critics of Yoon rallied in nearby streets amid a heavy police presence, holding signs that ran from “Your excellency Yoon, we will carry on with your spirit” to “Give Yoon Suk Yeol the death penalty!”
In a separate public message, Yoon expressed gratitude to his supporters who had protested for months calling for his reinstatement, and stressed that he will “continue to do my utmost” to build the “free and prosperous Republic of Korea that we have dreamed of together,” invoking South Korea’s formal name.
Yoon, a conservative who narrowly won the 2022 election, declared martial law on late-night television on Dec. 3, vowing to eradicate “anti-state” liberals whom he accused of abusing their legislative majority to obstruct his agenda. Yoon also declared a suspension of legislative activities and sent hundreds of troops to surround the National Assembly, but lawmakers still managed to form a quorum and voted to lift martial law just hours after it was imposed.
Yoon’s powers were suspended after the Assembly impeached him on Dec. 14. The Constitutional Court upheld impeachment and formally removed him from office last week, triggering a presidential election the government set for June 3.
Despite his self-inflicted downfall, it’s unlikely that Yoon will fade into the background, experts say. With the country entering election mode, he may try to rally his supporters while seeking to tighten his grip on the conservative People Power Party, whose leadership is stacked with loyalists.
Facing a separate criminal trial on rebellion charges, which are punishable by death or life in prison, Yoon would strongly prefer a conservative president who could pardon him if convicted and is likely to push to ensure the party’s primaries are won by a candidate he supports, experts say.
China hits back at Trump tariff hike, turmoil rings recession alarm
- Donald Trump has now imposed new tariffs on Chinese goods of 145 percent since taking office
- Beijing indicated that this would be the last time it matched the US tariff hike
BEIJING/WARSAW/WASHINGTON: Beijing on Friday increased its tariffs on US imports to 125 percent, hitting back against US President Donald Trump’s decision to hike duties on Chinese goods to 145 percent and raising the stakes in a trade war that threatens to up-end global supply chains.
China’s retaliation intensified the economic turmoil unleashed by Trump’s tariffs, with markets tumbling further and foreign leaders puzzling how to respond to the biggest disruption to the world trade order in decades.
The brief reprieve for battered stocks seen after Trump decided to pause duties for dozens of countries for 90 days quickly dissipated, as attention returned to the escalating trade conflict between the US and China that has fueled global recession fears.
Global stocks fell, the dollar slid and a sell-off in US government bonds picked up pace on Friday, reigniting fears of fragility in the world’s biggest bond market. Gold, a safe haven for investors in times of crisis, scaled a record high.
“Recession risk is much, much higher now than it was a couple weeks ago,” said Adam Hetts, global head of multi-asset at Janus Henderson.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shrugged off the renewed market turmoil on Thursday and said striking deals with other countries would bring certainty.
The US and Vietnam have agreed to begin formal trade talks, the White House said. The Southeast Asian manufacturing hub is prepared to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped to the United States via its territory in the hope of avoiding tariffs, Reuters exclusively reported.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, meanwhile, has set up a trade task force that hopes to visit Washington next week.
Trade war with China
As Trump suddenly paused his ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on other countries hours after they came into effect earlier this week, he ratcheted up duties on Chinese imports as punishment for Beijing’s initial move to retaliate.
He has now imposed new tariffs on Chinese goods of 145 percent since taking office.
China hit back with new tariffs on Friday, although Beijing indicated that this would be the last time it matched the US, should Trump take his duties any higher.
“Even if the US continues to impose even higher tariffs, it would no longer have any economic significance and would go down as a joke in the history of world economics,” the finance ministry statement added.
“If the US continues to play a numbers game with tariffs, China will not respond,” it added, however, leaving the door open for Beijing to turn to other types of retaliation, and reiterating that China would fight the US to the end.
Trump had told reporters at the White House on Thursday that he thought the United States could make a deal with China and said he respected Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“In a true sense he’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time, and I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries,” he said.
Xi, in his first public remarks on Trump’s tariffs, told Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez during a meeting in Beijing on Friday that China and the European Union should “jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying,” in a clear swipe at Trump’s tariff policies.
“There are no winners in a trade war,” the Chinese leader told his guest, adding that by acting together, the world’s second-largest economy and the 27-strong European trade bloc could defend their interests and help uphold “the global rules-based order,” China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.
