Month: April 2023

On Thursday 6 April, Hassan B. admitted the facts in the dock. He is the author of about twenty letters with a gruesome content, one worse than the other. Between death threats and glorification of terrorism, this letter writer has been up to mischief in Gard since 2019, reports the daily Midi libre.

“If you don’t stop this shit about secularism, I will treat you like Samuel Paty. I will behead you and display your heads at the entrance of the Collège.” The Moroccan-born man used to send these harsh words to several recipients in the Gard, such as colleges, town halls or even the director of the Nîmes University Hospital.

In several of his letters, Hassan B. glorifies terrorism, using the names of Kouachi and Daesh or promising to “slaughter people like in the Bataclan”. His victims included the Grande-Motte synagogue and the Israelite cult association of Béziers, as well as the mayor of that city, Robert Ménard: “I will go to my friend Ménard and his wife and empty my magazine on them”. This colporteur sent no less than 22 letters between 2019 and 2022.

The perpetrator, supported by his lawyer, pleaded insanity in the first instance. The 41-year-old explained that he hears “a voice that tells me to write all this down, it gives me orders”. These explanations did not convince the court: “It is not enough to come into the courtroom and say “I am psychotic”. The letters are structured, the statements well chosen”, the representative of the prosecution explained.

Despite his clean criminal record, Hassan B. was sentenced to five years imprisonment, three of which were suspended, combined with a commitment to therapy and a mandatory job. He was immediately taken into custody and is no longer allowed to stay in the Gard department. This conviction is the result of persistent investigations, as the accused had been convicted by his DNA, although the perpetrator was careful enough to sign his letters with the names of parents, relatives or simple neighbours.

https://www.valeursactuelles.com/regions/occitanie/gard/ales/societe/je-vais-vous-faire-comme-samuel-paty-un-individu-condamne-a-cinq-ans-de-prison-pour-des-lettres-de-menaces-et-dapologie-du-terrorisme

With a celebrated food culture, Italy is known for protecting its culinary traditions even as many of its recipes have transcended borders. 

So some food lovers may be surprised that pasta brand Barilla is shaking up one of Italy’s best-known dishes: carbonara. 

Coinciding with National Carbonara Day April 6, Barilla has launched an initiative called Open Carbonara, which offers up a cross-cultural rendition of the Italian classic. Created by Publicis Italy, the campaign promotes food inclusivity, as the brand’s research reveals that 58% of people say they face some form of limitation when it comes to eating. 

Traditional carbonara is a dish of Roman origin, prepared with spaghetti, guanciale (cured meat made from pork cheek), pecorino Romano, eggs and pepper. These ingredients mean the dish is not suitable for those who observe halal, kosher, vegan, gluten-free or lactose-free diets. 

This issue comes to light in Barilla’s short film, which follows a group of children at an Italian school. When the kids sit down for lunch, most of them are served carbonara, but a few with dietary restrictions receive a different dish—and feel left out among their peers. 

La société @Barilla diffuse un clip de promotion d’une recette de pâte carbonara « inclusive » sans porc car « la société est multiculturelle ».
👉 Le porc, aliment traditionnel de notre culture, divise : il est désormais un obstacle au vivre-ensemble et doit disparaître. pic.twitter.com/iFwm1tphGN

— Damien Rieu (@DamienRieu) April 6, 2023

One of the girls goes home and tells her dad that she won’t eat carbonara anymore because her friend Gabriele can’t have it. Her father happens to be Michelin-starred chef Marco Martini, and the children’s wish inspires him to create “a much more inclusive carbonara.” 

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The primary suspect in the 2016 bombings in Brussels—an attack carried out by Islamic State militants that saw 32 people lose their lives and over 300 more injured—has claimed to have had no prior knowledge of the terror plot.

33-year-old Salah Abdeslam, who presently is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his role in the Paris terror attacks of November 2015, is one of ten men presently being tried in the Belgian capital. Six of the ten defendants have already been found guilty of involvement in the Paris attacks, which left 130 dead and 416 injured, 100 of them critically. 

He faced his first day of cross-examination on Wednesday, April 5th, during which he not only claimed that his “presence in the dock was unjustified” but accused the court of “trying to make an example of [him].”

“I was not aware of anything,” he insisted, before going on to argue there is no way he could have been involved in the planning of the Brussels attack, claiming that the terrorists had planned the attack, which took place on March 22nd, following his arrest on March 18th.

“I was not aware of anything,” he insisted.

38-year-old Mohamed Abrini, Abdeslam’s childhood friend and co-defendant, also took the stand, and like Abdeslam, minimized the role he played in the deadly terrorist attack. Abrini, the only surviving member of the four-man suicide bombing team, apparently backed out at the last minute according to CCTV footage, choosing not to detonate his bomb. 

The other three attackers, Najim Laachraoui, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, and Khalid El Bakraoui, went through with their suicide bombings, with the former two detonating their explosives in Brussels airport while the latter blew himself up at the Maalbeek metro station.

While speaking to the court, Abrini, already serving a life sentence with no opportunity of parole before 22 years served, claimed: “They’re trying to pin this all on us. Just like in Paris, they’ll convict for what others did.”

He insisted that those on trial in Belgium were “not the tip of the pyramid,” telling the court that authorities “never caught those pulling the strings.” But, he continued, “you have to trot out someone, and that someone is us.”

In the coming weeks, the court will ask defendants to provide their version of the events that led up to the attack and the day of the attack itself.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/primary-suspect-in-brussels-bomb-case-denies-knowledge-of-plot/