Planners of Charlie Hebdo attack go to trial: Here's what happened during 3-day killing spree

After five years, the trial for the infamous Charlie Hebdo attack in France will start on Wednesday. 

The trial, which will run for 10 weeks and be filmed throughout.

The attack sparked off a wave of Islamist violence in France. 

The attackers involved in the attack are all dead. This is a trial for their alleged accomplices.

Fourteen defendants, three of whom will be tried in absentia and may be dead, face charges including financing terrorism, membership in a terrorist organisation and supplying weapons to the perpetrators.

The French newspaper Charlie Hebdo has reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on the eve of the trial, whose staff was killed in a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists.

The paper, known for its irreverent take on matters concerning race, religion and politics, stated that it was necessary to print those caricatures as it was the opening day of the trial.

The caricatures re-published this week were first printed in the fall of 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, setting off sometimes violent protests in early 2006 by Muslims who believe depicting Muhammad is blasphemy.

What happened in the Charlie Hebdo attacks of 2015?

On Jan. 7, 2015, brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a killing spree at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris. They open fired on the reporters and illustrators at the satirical weekly office.

Among the dead were, the editor Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb, four other cartoonists including Cabu, two columnists, a copy editor, a guest attending the meeting, and the caretaker. 

The far-right Islamists were reportedly angry over portrayals of the Prophet Mohammed for which the editorial team has been receiving many death threats, and in 2011 their office was petrol bombed.

Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch placed Charlie Hebdo’s then-director on its “wanted list” after the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad irked them.

On January 9, Cherif Kouachi killed four Jewish men at a kosher supermarket. In a video, he said he acted in the name of the Islamic State. Before holding the Jewish men hostage at the supermarket, he had shot dead a policewoman in a separate incident.

Out of the 17 people who died after attacks against Charlie Hebdo and, two days later, a kosher supermarket, 12 of them were from the editorial offices along with all three attackers.

The brothers died in a police assault two days later.

The perpetrator of the attack on the Jewish store was also killed by the police.