Survivor of Charlie Hebdo attack recalls ‘horror’ at trial

PARIS, France (AFP) — The French cartoonist who was forced by the attackers of the Charlie Hebdo weekly to let them into its offices said Tuesday that she had been traumatized by feelings of guilt as she recalled the horror of the January 2015 massacre.

Corinne Rey, 38, known as Coco, had gone outside on January 7, 2015, for a cigarette when the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi approached her and forced her to tap in the entry code for the office as they brandished a Kalashnikov.

“I had a sense of dread,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion.

“I was in distress, I could not think anymore,” she told the trial of 14 suspected accomplices in the January 7-9 attacks on the magazine and a Jewish supermarket that claimed 17 lives.

“I knew it was a Kalashnikov,” she said, recalling the long climb up the stairs before entering the offices of Charlie Hebdo, with the Kouachi brothers “armed to the teeth.”

French cartoonist Corinne Rey, also known as ‘Coco,’ leaves a Paris courtroom on September 8, 2020, after a hearing of several witnesses in the trial of 14 suspected accomplices in the Charlie Hebdo, Montrouge and Hyper Cacher jihadist killings. (Thomas Samson/AFP)

“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,” she recalled. “I felt that the terrorists were approaching their goal, I felt them growing excited next to me.”

‘Silence of death’

Entering the offices, the attackers shot at Simon Fieschi, the administrator of the weekly’s website. Rey said she ran to hide under a desk.

“After the shots, there was silence, a silence of death… I thought they were going to finish off the job with all the ones they hadn’t killed.”

But after killing 10 people inside the office, the attackers left, leaving behind a vision of “horror.”

A courtroom sketch made on September 2, 2020 at a Paris courthouse showing the fourteen accused and their lawyers, wearing protective masks, on the first day of the trial of the accomplices in the Charlie Hebdo jihadist killings in 2015. (Benoit Peyrucq/AFP)

“I saw the legs of Cabu. Wolinski was not moving. I saw Charb — the side of his face was extremely pale. Riss was wounded and he told me, ‘Coco, don’t worry.'”

Jean Cabut, known as Cabu, 76, Georges Wolinski, 80, and Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, 47, were among France’s most celebrated cartoonists. All lost their lives in the massacre.

Laurent Sourisseau, known as Riss, was shot and wounded but survived. He is now Charlie Hebdo’s director.

“This is the talent that was killed that day, they were models for me,” Rey said. “They were extremely kind people, who had a talent for being funny … It’s not easy to be funny, but they were able to do it very well.”

‘I am not the guilty one’

Five years later, Rey said she still struggled with the memories of the attacks as well as sensations of impotence and even guilt.

This combination of file photos made on January 8, 2015 shows (from L top to bottom R) French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s deputy chief editor Bernard Maris and cartoonists Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut, aka Cabu, Charb, Tignous and Honore (Philippe Honore), who were killed during the attack on the Paris offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015. (Guillaume BAPTISTE and FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP)

“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.

The trial, which began on September 2, is expected to continue until November, reopening one of the most painful chapters in France’s history, even if those on trial are only suspected accomplices of the attackers, who were killed by police in the aftermath of the massacre.

Defiant as ever, Charlie Hebdo last week republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that had sparked anger across the Islamic world, drawing new condemnation from states including Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.