The opening of the trial on Monday coincides with the 10th anniversary of the jihadist attack which decimated part of the editorial staff of “Charlie Hebdo”.
AFP
On the first day of the trial for the butcher’s leaf attack in front of the former premises of “Charlie Hebdo” in September 2020, the main accused asked Monday for “forgiveness” from the victims and their families.
“These are really serious facts. I ask for forgiveness from the victims, their families and the people I hurt,” said Zaheer Mahmood, who will turn 30 on January 25.
The young Pakistani, white shirt and blue jeans, short beard and brown hair, appears with five co-defendants, all Pakistanis, before the special assize court for minors in Paris for attempted terrorist assassinations and criminal terrorist association.
The victims “did not deserve this”, added awkwardly, in hesitant French, Zaheer Mahmood, thus suggesting that they could have “deserved” it if, as the Pakistani national thought at the time of the events, they had worked for “Charlie Hebdo”.
The opening of this trial coincides with the 10th anniversary of the jihadist attack which decimated part of the editorial staff of the weekly.
The other defendants, two of whom appear free, are being prosecuted for participation in a terrorist criminal association.
Three of the accused were minors at the time of the events. A request for a closed session was presented at the start of the hearing by defense lawyers, but the court rejected this request, arguing that all the accused were now adults and that the only legal obligation was not to reveal their identity.
Questioning of the defendants on the merits is not expected until next week.
“What I did was good”
The chopper attack took place on September 25, 2020, in the middle of the trial of the January 2015 attacks which notably targeted “Charlie Hebdo”. The satirical weekly was the subject of new threats since it republished the caricatures of Mohammed which had made it the target of jihadists, on the day the trial opened on September 2.
Around 11:40 a.m. on September 25, Zaheer Mahmood arrived in front of a building on rue Nicolas-Appert (11th arrondissement of Paris), armed with a chopper, and seriously injured two employees of the Premières Lignes press agency who were were on the porch smoking a cigarette.
The two victims, a 28-year-old woman and a 32-year-old man, were seriously injured in the face.
Zaheer Mahmood, who arrived clandestinely in France in 2018, thought of attacking employees of “Charlie Hebdo”, unaware that the newspaper had left its premises after the 2015 attack.
“What I did was good. I feel better. I consider that they are well punished. We don’t make fun of religion,” he declared in police custody.
“In our Islam, we say that if someone insults or makes fun of our Prophet, we must kill those who insulted him,” he stressed.
To investigators, Zaheer Mahmood explained his action by the anger felt during the new publication of the caricatures of Mohammed.
This publication led to demonstrations in several Muslim countries, including Pakistan, where blasphemy is punishable by death.
The searches and analyzes of the numerous telephones and computer equipment found at Mr. Mahmood’s home made it possible to identify five people who would have “motivated and supported him in his ideological process which had become a violent spiral”.
The investigation demonstrated regular contacts between Zaheer Mahmood and these men, including the exchange of videos of sermons advocating beheading for blasphemers.
The trial is scheduled until January 24.
(afp)
