On the eve of the commemorations of the 10th anniversary of the attack against Charlie Hebdoanother attack linked to the tragedy takes place before the specially composed juvenile court, from Monday January 6. For three weeks, six men will be tried for their involvement in the chopper attack that occurred in September 2020 in front of the former premises of the satirical newspaper. The attacker, who aimed Charlie Hebdobut was unaware that the weekly had left the premises after the attack in January 2015, which had seriously injured two people. Now aged 29, he is on trial for attempted terrorist assassinations while the five other defendants are on trial for criminal terrorist association, according to the indictment order consulted by franceinfo.
Two people were seriously injured
The events took place on September 25, 2020 late in the morning. When the police arrived at the scene of the attack, they discovered two people in a state of absolute emergency. These employees of the production company First Lines had been attacked while they were smoking a cigarette by a stranger who “delivered violent blows (…) mainly to the head”relates the indictment order.
Video surveillance images and reconstruction of the facts “give a precise idea of the extent of the injuries” et “of their consequences if the victims had not managed to flee”. The 28-year-old woman had wounds and fractures to her face with “at least 10 days of ITT” and the 32-year-old man suffered several skull fractures and a “ITT of at least three months”according to the national anti-terrorism prosecutor at the time, Jean-François Ricard.
The attack had revived painful memories, five years after the attack against Charlie Hebdo. The events were intrinsically linked, the attacker having admitted wanting to attack the employees of the satirical newspaper, without knowing that the editorial staff had moved. Several journalists from the agency which had moved to the former offices of Charlie Hebdo had then deplored the absence of police surveillance. The Minister of the Interior therefore had “asked the Paris police prefect to strengthen the security of a number of sites, including sites which may be symbolic”.
The attack had been “carefully prepared”
The man behind this chopper attack was 25 years old at the time of the incident. After presenting himself to the police under a false identity, during his eighth police custody hearing he recognized his real name: Zaheer Mahmood. The only precedent known to the authorities: he had been involved, three months before the events, in a violent brawl during which he wore a butcher's sheet. Photographs of weapons were discovered on his phone by investigators.
During the hearings, the accused quickly “detailed the motivations for his action, and explained the anger he felt at the new publication by Charlie Hebdo of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed”according to the investigating magistrates. Zaheer Mahmood refers to a cartoon from the satirical newspaper published on the occasion of the opening, in early September 2020, of the trial for the January 2015 attacks. The caricature had led to protests in Muslim countries, including Pakistan, his country of origin.
“Here, today, September 25, Friday, I am going to go and revolt against this.” These comments come from a video found on the attacker's phone and shared on social networks, recorded the morning of the incident. For almost three minutes, Zaheer Mahmood details the action he is about to commit. He has no allegiance to any particular terrorist group. However, the investigation highlighted his interest in the videos of Khadim Hussain Rizvi, founder of the Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan.
In their indictment order, the investigating magistrates consider that his “the gesture was carefully prepared by several scoutings at the scene of the events and by the purchase of weapons in particular”including the chopper. The young man recognizes the facts “and justifies them before the investigators by ensuring in particular that 'to die as a martyr' was his reward.. They also emphasize that “Zaheer Mahmood adopts a positithe victim's treatment is inconsistent with the awareness that could be expected from him several years after the events, given the images of incredible violence (…) and the heavy trauma presented by the two victims.”. He is appearing for “attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise”.
Five friends are accused of criminal conspiracy
In accordance with the requisitions of the public prosecutor, five friends of the attacker, all of Pakistani origin, are tried alongside him for criminal terrorist association. Three of them were under 18 years old at the time of the events, which explains why the trial was being held before the juvenile court. Aged 17 to 21 on September 25, 2020, they are accused of complicity to varying degrees, from support in the radicalization process to helping to carry out the project.
They are being tried for several reasons, including that of having motivated and supported Zaheer Mahmood “in his ideological process” and to have exchanged propaganda with him “calling for the murder of blasphemers”reports the charging order. The investigators also established that they had each been aware of the assailant's plan, without trying to dissuade him. All of them said the opposite in police custody, with the exception of one of them. The young man admitted to having been informed and to having “tried to dissuade his friend”but he said he did not believe in “serious” of this project.
The five accused are also appearing for having contributed to the media coverage of the attack, carefully anticipated by Zaheer Mahmood. For example, two of them received the passwords for his mailbox and his social networks in order to relay, after the attack, “elements glorifying and justifying the crime committed”. Another was the recipient of the video protest, two hours before the attack was committed. He was responsible for spreading it to his accomplices. However, a dismissal of the case was pronounced for a seventh man, aged 52, who had been presented by the assailant as his “sponsor”.
“One of the challenges of this investigation was to analyze the notion of blasphemy for these young unaccompanied Pakistani minors, grouped in France by Child Welfare, in the same rooms”commented Moad Nefati, lawyer for one of the five men, to AFP last March. “This reflection did not occur and we will therefore have a classic terrorist conspiracy trial, where our client will be dismissed for having lent his cell phone to his roommate”he regretted.
