French comedian Dieudonne will stand trial on suspicion of glorifying terrorism after a Facebook comment referencing last week’s attacks in Paris. Prosecutors opened a case against the notorious comedian on Monday after he posted the remark, which appeared to sympathise with the Islamist gunmen who left 17 people dead.
Playing on the slogan “Je suis Charlie”, the comedian wrote: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.”
The comment has since been deleted.
Amedy Coulibaly is accused of murdering a policewoman and then storming a kosher supermarket, shooting dead four shoppers.
He claimed to have been collaborating with brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, who slaughtered 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. All three gunmen were subsequently killed in police raids.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has since declared a “war against terrorism”.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has described Dieudonne’s comment as “contemptible”.
However his lawyer, Jacques Verdier, protested his innocence.
“The prime minister said that under exceptional circumstances there should be exceptional measures and the first thing they did was to arrest Dieudonne,” he said.
He feels like he is Coulibaly because he is being treated like a terrorist in his own country. And the proof is that he was arrested as an apologist to terrorism.
“Now there is total confusion over something that was completely innocent.”
If found guilty, the comedian could face up to seven years in jail.
Dieudonne has previously sparked controversy over his use of a hand-gesture resembling a Nazi salute, considered by many to be anti-Semitic.
The Home Office banned him from entering the UK after footballer Nicolas Anelka was accused of using the comic’s ‘quenelle’ salute on the pitch.
In an exclusive Sky News interview, Dieudonne described the footballer as a “prince”.
The first edition of Charlie Hebdo to be published after the attacks sold out just hours after going on sale, with long queues reported at newsstands across Paris.
Sky News
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