2023-12-19 19:03:34
The Toulouse Court of Appeal again sentenced, Tuesday December 19, Jean-Marc Rouillan, co-founder of the far-left armed group Direct Action, to prison for “apology of terrorism”.
“The Toulouse Court of Appeal confirmed the judgment of the Paris criminal court which had sentenced Mr. Rouillan to eight months’ imprisonment”, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from the Toulouse public prosecutor’s office. The judgment sentences the septuagenarian to a sentence already served and therefore does not return him to detention, one of his lawyers, Me Marie-Christine Etelin, told AFP, who also notes that the decision goes to the against a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
In June 2022, it had rightly condemned France because of the “heaviness of the criminal sanction imposed” to Mr. Rouillan by the Paris Court of Appeal in May 2017, which itself confirmed the first instance judgment and the eight-month prison sentence.
Life imprisonment for terrorist assassinations
The comments targeted in this case were made in 2016 by Mr. Rouillan during an interview with a Marseille satirical media during which he described ” very brave “ the perpetrators of the jihadist attack against Charlie Hebdo in 2015 (twelve dead), while criticizing “their reactionary idea”. Taking up the ECHR’s argument, last March the French Court of Review annulled the sentence handed down in Paris and sent the case back to Toulouse.
The judgment rendered by the magistrates of the Pink City is “still contrary to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights”was surprised Me Etelin, noting “their refusal to submit to the opinion of a higher court”. “We are filing a cassation appeal today or tomorrow”she added. “I should have said “determined” instead of “courageous””declared Jean-Marc Rouillan at the hearing before the Toulouse Court of Appeal in October.
Sentenced to life imprisonment for the terrorist assassinations of the general armaments engineer René Audran (in 1985) and the CEO of Renault Georges Besse (in 1986), he was reincarcerated after an interview in L’Express in 2007, where he declared that he “spit” not on everything he had done, thus violating the ban on him speaking publicly about facts for which he was convicted.
Also read the portrait: Article reserved for our subscribers Jean-Marc Rouillan, former member of Action Directe and new guru of radicalism
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