The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat) requested that six men, including a 29-year-old Pakistani, suspected of a chopper attack in front of the former Charlie Hebdo premises in September 2020, be tried by the special juvenile court, AFP learned Thursday from a source close to the matter.
For this attack on rue Nicolas Appert in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which seriously injured two current and former employees of the Premières Lignes press agency, the Pnat on Wednesday requested a trial for attempted terrorist assassinations against the attacker, Zaheer Mahmoud, and for criminal terrorist conspiracy against the five other men, including three minors at the time of the events, from his entourage.
According to the requisitions of a vice-prosecutor of the anti-terrorism Republic of which the AFP was aware, the terrorist nature of the attack is not in doubt, in particular because of the demand for custody of the attacker : “What I did was good.
I feel better.
I consider that they are well punished.
We don’t make fun of religion.”
Friends suspected of encouraging violence
The public prosecutor wants five other men, all of Pakistani origin and belonging to his friendly circle, to be tried for criminal terrorist association.
Three protagonists being minors at the time of the facts, the prosecution requests that the trial be held in one piece before the specially composed juvenile assize court.
“His friends maintained, maintained and increased the violent potential of (the assailant) tenfold under the background of alleged revenge against people designated as blasphemers,” writes the deputy prosecutor.
On the other hand, a dismissal of the charges was requested for a seventh man presented as the instigator of the acts by the assailant.
The final decision on a trial rests with the investigating judge in charge of the case.
Also read: Five years after Charlie Hebdo, a new nightmare: the story of the attack on rue Nicolas-Appert
Zaheer Mahmoud arrived in France in 2018. Shortly before noon, on September 25, 2020, this young Pakistani went to rue Nicolas-Appert in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, armed with a chopper, injuring the two victims who were in front the door of the building.
The attacker was unaware that Charlie Hebdo had left its premises after the 2015 attack.
During an interrogation before the investigating judge in December 2020, he confided to having been “shocked” by the new publication of caricatures of the prophet by the weekly on the occasion of the opening in early September 2020 of the trial of attacks of January 2015. This publication led to demonstrations in Muslim countries, including Pakistan, his country of origin.
His lawyers, Maïa Kantor and Albéric de Gayardon, did not wish to comment.