Charlie Hebdo trial: Artist recalls 'silence of death' after being forced to escort gunmen

A survivor of the attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo recalled the horrors during a trial of 14 people accused of helping the two terrorists who killed 12 people. Corinne Rey, known as Coco, had gone outside for a smoke when she encountered the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi and forced her to escort them to to the magazine's second-floor offices.

“Coco, we want Charlie Hebdo,” the terrorists said, as quoted by Rey during emotional testimony.

Rey told the court that she had a “sense of dread” and couldn’t think anymore as the Kouachi brothers were “armed to teeth”. She recalled climbing up the stairs with the terrorists before entering the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the magazine which had published cartoons on Prophet Muhammad, angering the Muslim community.

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Before the ghastly attack, terrorists had warned Charlie Hebdo that it would pay a heavy price for publishing the cartoons. On January 7, 2015, brothers Chérif and Said Kouachi stormed Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris with assault rifles, submachine guns, grenades and pistols and killed 12 people, including cartoonists and other editorial staff. 

"I was devastated, as if dispossessed of myself, I could no longer do anything. I moved towards the code keypad and I typed it in...I felt that the terrorists were approaching their goal, I felt them growing excited next to me," she said.

Sense of guilt

Rey said she ran to hide under a desk as the attackers shot at Simon Fieschi, the administrator of the magazine’s website. She recalled that there was a “silence of death” after the gunmen killed 10 people inside the office. As they left the office, a wounded Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau, now Charlie Hebdo’s director, told Rey “Coco, don't worry”.

"It took me a long time to understand that I am not the guilty one. The only culprits are the Islamist terrorists. The Kouachis and those who helped them," she told the court.

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(With AP inputs)