A Paris court has sentenced a 29-year-old Pakistani man, Zaheer Mahmood, to 30 years in prison for attempting to murder two individuals outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2020 using a meat cleaver.
Mahmood carried out the attack under the mistaken belief that the satirical newspaper still operated from the building. The offices had been relocated following a deadly Islamist assault in 2015, which claimed the lives of 12 people, including eight editorial staff members, and ignited intense debates in France over freedom of expression and religion.
Originally from rural Pakistan, Mahmood illegally entered France during the summer of 2019. During the trial, it was revealed that he had been influenced by radical Pakistani preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who advocated the beheading of those deemed blasphemers as a form of “avenging the Prophet Muhammad.”
The court convicted Mahmood of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy, imposing a lifetime ban on his reentry to French territory.
