French court - The African Mirror

Nov

2023

Six teens in court in connection with beheading of French teacher

SIX teenagers go on trial behind closed doors in connection with the beheading of French history teacher Samuel Paty in 2020, a murder that shocked the country. The teacher had shown his pupils caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a class on freedom of expression, angering some Muslim parents. Most Muslims avoid depictions of prophets, considering them blasphemous. A 13-year-old girl at the time allegedly told her parents that Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the room before showing the caricatures. She is facing false accusation charges after it was established that she was not in the class when it…

Mar

2023

By JULIETTE JABKHIRO

Corruption sentence for Papa Massata Diack stands

ATHLETICS

PARIS appeal court upheld a corruption conviction for Papa Massata Diack, son of Lamine Diack, the late former head of the world athletics governing body. Papa Massata, who has denied all wrongdoing, is currently in Senegal, where he fled seven years ago when the French investigation first began. His lawyer said he was unable to attend the trial because he was under legal supervision and could not leave the country. Papa Massata and his father were at the heart of a scandal that involved taking kickbacks from Russian athletes in return for concealing positive drug tests that enabled them to continue…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

French court to rule on landmark TotalEnergies Uganda case

NEWS

AMERICA HERNANDEZ A French court could order oil major TotalEnergies to halt the development of an east Africa pipeline in a landmark case based on legislation that makes big companies liable for risks to the environment and human rights. The Paris civil court will rule on a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Earth France and five other French and Ugandan activist groups accusing TotalEnergies of expropriating land from more than 100,000 people without sufficient compensation and drilling on a natural park with endangered species. TotalEnergies has argued that its vigilance, compensation and relocalisation plans are fair and legal and that…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Carlos the Jackal seeks to reduce life sentence for deadly 1974 grenade attack

WORLD

CARLOS the Jackal, the leftist militant who carried out attacks across the globe in the 1970s and 1980s, opened a bid in a French court on Wednesday to reduce the life sentence he had been given for a deadly grenade attack on a Paris shop in 1974. The self-declared "professional revolutionary", whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, has been behind bars in France since he was captured and spirited out of Sudan by French special forces in 1994. He was found guilty in 2017 over a grenade attack in 1974 on a shop on Paris's Champs Elysees, the Drugstore…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

French court rules against Clint Eastwood testifying in train attack trial

WORLD

A French court has ruled that Clint Eastwood cannot testify during the trial of a suspected Islamist gunman, whose attack on a high-speed train was thwarted by three Americans, who later played themselves in a movie by the U.S. actor and director. The trial of Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, who opened fire aboard a Thalys train travelling through Northern Europe in August 2015, started on Monday in Paris. Ayoub El Khazzani, the suspect in the French train attack, faces attempted murder and other charges as he is brought to court blindfolded and barefoot. Khazzani's lawyer had asked before the…