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.
Alternative: You assholes renounce Sharia and embrace secularism, or we’ll do to yourself things that make Abu Ghraib look like a Candyland.