Charlie Hebdo HR chief had ‘ten minutes’ to leave home forever over death threats during terror trial

Charlie Hebdo HR director Marika Bret received death threats during the trial of 14 alleged accomplices

Credit: JOEL SAGET/AFP

Charlie Hebdo’s head of human resources was given "10 minutes” to leave her home after police received credible death threats during the ongoing trial over the January 2015 massacre at the satirical weekly in Paris.

Marika Bret, who has been living under police protection for nearly five years since the deadly assault, said the threats were "sufficiently concrete to be taken seriously” and that she would not be returning to her main residence.

"I had 10 minutes to gather my things and leave my home. Ten minutes to leave behind a part of my life, that’s a bit short, that’s very brutal," she told weekly news magazine Le Point. “The police explained that I would probably never return.”

The death threats were issued amid the trial of 14 suspected accomplices of the perpetrators of the massacres at Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket that left a total of 17 dead. Ms Bret had been attending the trial.

Twelve people, including some of France’s best-known cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. They said the Kalashnikov executions were in revenge for the magazine publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Police told Charlie Hebdo HR chief Marika Bret she would not be able to return to her home again

Credit: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP

There is "a crazy amount of hatred surrounding Charlie Hebdo", Ms Bret told Le Point, saying the forced departure from her home "translates the unprecedented level of tension that we are having to deal with".

Since the start of the trial, which prompted Charlie Hebdo to republish controversial cartoons, "we have received all kinds of horrible messages, notably threats from Al-Qaeda, and calls to finish the job started by the Kouachi brothers," Ms Bret said.

Al-Qaeda earlier this month threatened Charlie Hebdo with a repeat of the massacre of its staff.

She said the trial was “historic and political because secularism and the freedom of expression have been struck to the core”.

“React because what happened on 7, 8, and 9 January 2015 started well beforehand and is ongoing”,” she told France Info.

She said the attack had affected French society where “laughter is no longer accepted, mockery and humour which are the most pacific form of expression and thought are not understood as such and deliberately warped”.