Chopper attack outside former Charlie Hebdo offices: assailant sentenced to 30 years in prison and ban from entering the country

The sentence that had been requested this Tuesday, January 21 against Zaheer Mahmood has been carried out. This 29-year-old Pakistani was sentenced following a cleaver attack in front of the former offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2020.

The man tried for attempting to kill two people in front of the Charlie Hebdo offices in September 2020 was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Thursday by the special juvenile assize court in Paris.

Zaheer Mahmood, a 29-year-old Pakistani, was found guilty of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy after seriously injuring two people with a meat cleaver in Paris in front of the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, thinking he was going to attack journalists from the satirical weekly.

Permanently banned from the territory

The president of the court, Caroline Jadis-Pomeau, also notified him of a permanent ban from French territory and the inclusion in the register of perpetrators of terrorist offences (Fijait).

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Zaheer Mahmood, 29, originally from a rural region of Pakistan, arrived illegally in France in the summer of 2018. This practicing Muslim and follower of a radical imam intended to “avenge the Prophet” after the satirical newspaper republished caricatures of Muhammad on September 2, 2020, on the occasion of the opening of the trial of the jihadist attacks of January 2015.

He was unaware that the weekly had moved after the attack that decimated its editorial staff. On September 25, 2020, at around 11:40 a.m., the young Pakistani arrived on rue Nicolas-Appert in front of Charlie Hebdo's former address, armed with a butcher's knife. He had seriously injured two employees of the Premières Lignes news agency.

Five other convicts

Five men, Pakistanis, some of whom were minors at the time of the events, were tried alongside him for terrorist criminal association for having supported and encouraged Zaheer Mahmood's actions.

The Assize Court handed down sentences ranging from three to twelve years in prison, registration in the terrorist offences register (Fijait) and permanent bans from the national territory for adults. None of the six accused reacted to the verdict.

The two victims of the attack were present and did not wish to comment on the outcome of this trial, which they followed, supported every day by their families.