A Paris court has sentenced Zaheer Mahmood, a 33-year-old Pakistani national, to 30 years in prison for a brutal 2020 attack with a meat cleaver that injured two individuals. Mahmood believed he was targeting the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical newspaper that had published controversial caricatures of Islam in 2005 and republished them in 2020. However, the publication had vacated the building years earlier following a deadly 2015 terrorist attack.
The incident, which occurred outside Charlie Hebdo’s former office, shocked France, reigniting debates on freedom of expression and religious sensitivities. Mahmood, hailing from rural Pakistan, had illegally entered France in 2019. During his trial, it was revealed that he had been influenced by the late Khadim Hussain Rizvi, founder of the banned Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), who had called for violence against individuals accused of blasphemy.
The court convicted Mahmood of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy. Alongside his prison sentence, he has been permanently banned from entering France.
The attack occurred shortly after Charlie Hebdo republished the controversial cartoons in September 2020 to coincide with the trial of the 2015 attackers. Mahmood, armed with a butcher’s cleaver, wounded two employees of the Premieres Lignes news agency who were working in the building.
Five other Pakistani nationals, some minors at the time, were also tried for assisting Mahmood. A French special court sentenced them to prison terms ranging from three to 12 years.
The case drew widespread attention in both France and Pakistan, where Charlie Hebdo’s decision to republish the cartoons had triggered mass protests. In Pakistan, blasphemy remains a highly sensitive issue, punishable by death under the law.
The sentencing highlights the ongoing tension between freedom of expression and religious sensitivities in the global context.
