
A Paris court on Thursday sentenced a Pakistani man to 30 years in prison for attempting to murder two individuals outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in 2020 using a meat cleaver, reported AFP.
The attacker, 29-year-old Zaheer Mahmood, mistakenly believed the satirical publication still operated from the building, which had been the target of an Islamist assault in 2015 over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
However, Charlie Hebdo relocated its offices following the 2015 attack by two masked gunmen linked to Al-Qaeda, which killed 12 people, including eight of the publication’s staff.
Mahmood, originally from rural Pakistan, had entered France illegally in the summer of 2019. During the trial, the court heard that Mahmood had been radicalized by Pakistani preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, known for his calls to execute those accused of blasphemy, according to AFP.
Convicted of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy, Mahmood will also be banned from France upon completing his sentence.
The events of 2015, including a coordinated attack at a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris that left four dead, ushered in a wave of extremist violence in France. In the years that followed, attacks inspired by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group heightened fears and deepened divisions over religious tensions.
In September 2020, ahead of the trial for the 2015 massacre, Charlie Hebdo republished its controversial Mohammed cartoons, prompting a surge of protests in Pakistan, where blasphemy can carry the death penalty.
Later that month, urged by the extremist preacher to "avenge the Prophet," Mahmood traveled to Charlie Hebdo’s former address. Armed with a butcher’s cleaver, he severely injured two employees of the Premieres Lignes news agency.
During the trial, Mahmood’s defense highlighted his feelings of cultural isolation in France, influenced by his upbringing in Pakistan’s deeply religious rural regions.
Five other Pakistani men, some minors at the time, were also on trial for terrorist conspiracy, accused of supporting and encouraging Mahmood’s actions. The court handed them sentences ranging from three to 12 years.