A man has been jailed for 30 years for attempting to murder two people with a meat cleaver outside the former Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2020.
Zaheer Mahmood, 29, from Pakistan, attacked and badly wounded two employees of the Premieres Lignes news agency, days after Charlie Hebdo had republished cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
He was unaware Charlie Hebdo had moved offices to a secret location after 12 people were killed there in a gun attack claimed by al-Qaeda following the original publication of the cartoons in 2015.
Mahmood was convicted of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy. He will be banned from France when his sentence is served.
Five other Pakistani men, some of whom were under 18 at the time of their crimes, were jailed for between three and 12 years on terrorist conspiracy charges for supporting Mahmood.
The trial was held in the juvenile court in Paris due to their ages.
The court heard that Mahmood had planned his attack after Charlie Hebdo republished its cartoons of the Prophet in September 2020 to mark the opening of the trial of some of those responsible for the 2015 massacre.
The court was told that Mahmood was influenced by radical Pakistani preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who had urged him to “avenge the Prophet”.
Armed with a meat cleaver, he arrived at Hebdo’s former offices in the French capital’s 11th district, and attacked and seriously wounded two employees of the Premieres Lignes news agency, which has offices nearby.
Witnesses at the time described how they saw their colleagues “bloodied, being chased by a man with a machete”.
His victims, a woman named “Helene”, 32, and a 37-year-old man, were present at the sentencing but did not comment on its outcome.
Neither has accepted Mahmood’s pleas for forgiveness.
“It broke something within me,” the 37-year-old said, as he told the court of his lengthy rehabilitation process.
Mahmood arrived in France illegally in 2017, although initially claimed to arrive in 2019. He also lied about his age, claiming to be 18.
Mahmood’s defence lawyer, Alberic de Gayardon, said his client lived and worked with Pakistanis and felt disconnected from France.
“He does not speak French, he lives with Pakistanis, he works for Pakistanis,” Mr Gayardon added. “In his head he had never left Pakistan.”
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