A Paris court has found 14 people guilty of involvement in a series of deadly militant Islamist attacks in Charlie Hebdo, supermarket attacks. The January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine, a policewoman and a Jewish supermarket left 17 people dead. Eleven defendants appeared in court for the verdict on Wednesday, and three were tried in absentia. One of those not in court was Hayat Boumeddiene, the fugitive partner of Amedy Coulibaly who was killed in the attack on the supermarket.

Boumeddiene, who fled to Syria a week before the attacks, was found guilty of financing terrorism and belonging to a criminal terrorist network. She was handed a 30-year jail sentence. Three of the 14 were tried in absentia after fleeing to Syria, including Hayat Boumeddiene, the former partner of the Islamist militant who killed four people in a supermarket and was later shot dead.

The remaining 11 men formed a circle of friends and prison acquaintances who had argued their help was either unwitting or done to facilitate a more regular crime such as armed robbery. One of those convicted was on a gambling binge during the attacks, another was a marijuana-smoking ambulance driver, and another was a childhood friend of the market attacker.

Several of the defendants exchanged texts or calls with Coulibaly in the days leading up to the attack. Seventeen people were killed in the two attacks, as well as three gunmen. On January 7, 2015, 12 people were shot dead when two gunmen raided the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo before fleeing.

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