French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, just ahead of the trial of 14 people for the deadly terror attack in 2015 on the publication’s Paris offices on 7 January 2015. 

Twelve people died in the gun rampage, including editorial cartoonists. The cartoons had originally appeared in a Danish newspaper.

Twelve people were killed, including famous cartoonists. Five people died in a related attack in Paris days later and a wave of Islamist terror attacks followed throughout France.

Massacre

An editorial in this week’s issue explains that the magazine has often been asked to publish caricatures of the Prophet in the period since the 2015 massacre.

"We have always refused to do so, not because it is prohibited – the law allows us to do so –but because there was a need for a good reason to do it, a reason which has meaning and which brings something to the debate," it says.

"To reproduce these cartoons in the week the trial over the January 2015 terrorist attacks opens seemed essential to us."

Attacks

Fourteen people are accused of obtaining weapons and providing logistical support for the attackers of Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices, and subsequent attacks on a Jewish supermarket and a police officer.

Three of the accused are being tried in absentia as they are believed to have fled to northern Syria and Iraq.