Man jailed for knife attack aimed at French magazine Charlie Hebdo

A Paris court sentences a Pakistani man to 30 years in jail for attempting to murder two people outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2020 with a meat cleaver.

When he carried out the attack, 29-year-old Zaheer Mahmood wrongly believed the satirical newspaper was still based in the building, which was targeted by Islamists a decade ago for publishing cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.

In fact, Charlie Hebdo had moved in the wake of the storming of its offices by two al-Qaeda-linked masked gunmen, who killed 12 people including eight of the paper’s editorial staff. The killings in January 2015 shocked France and triggered a fierce debate about freedom of expression and religion.

Originally from rural Pakistan, Mahmood arrived in France illegally in the summer of 2019. The court heard how Mahmood was influenced by radical Pakistani preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who had called for the beheading of blasphemers.

Mahmood was convicted of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy and he will be banned from France when his sentence is served.