French prosecutors seek lengthy jail terms for 'Charlie Hebdo' attack suspects

Fourteen people on trial accused of providing support to extremist gunmen during the Paris attacks in 2015

Police outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo following the terror attack on January 7, 2015 in Paris, France. Getty Images.

Prosecutors on Tuesday sought stiff sentences, from five years to life in jail, for 14 suspected accomplices of the extremist gunmen who murdered cartoonists and killed hostages at a Jewish supermarket in Paris in 2015.

Sixteen people were killed in the attack at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – which had published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed – and during a hostage-taking three days later.

One of the three assailants, all of whom were killed by police in shootouts, also shot dead a female police officer.

The 14, on trial since September, are accused of providing varying degrees of logistical support to killers Cherif and Said Kouachi and supermarket hostage-taker Amedy Coulibaly. They deny the charges.

Three of the suspects, who range in age from 29 to 68 and include Coulibaly's girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene, are being tried in their absence.

She fled to Syria shortly after the attacks and her current whereabouts are not known.

Prosecutors want a life term for Ali Riza Polat, 35, a French-Turkish citizen, presented during the trial as Coulibaly's "right-hand man" and accused of helping him and the Kouachi brothers secure weapons.

Mr Polat admitted to the court he had taken part in various scams but denied any knowledge of what Coulibaly, who had sworn allegiance to the ISIS terrorist group, and his accomplices were planning.

Mr Polat's co-accused, including two men who spent time in jail with Coulibaly, also denied any role in the attacks and rejected allegations of being radicalised.

The killing of the cartoonists caused deep shock in secular France, which has a tradition of anti-clerical satire.

The attacks marked the start of a long series of terrorist assaults in France, many of them carried out by young French supporters of ISIS.

Close to the start of the trial, the cartoons were at the centre of another deadly attack in October, with a young Chechen refugee beheading teacher Samuel Paty for showing some of the caricatures to pupils in a class on free speech.

The trial continues.