FRANCE’S FAR-RIGHT LEADER LE PEN ACQUITTED ON CHARGES OF TWEETING IMAGES OF IS

Tue 04 May 2021:

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Rally party, has been acquitted together with her fellow European lawmaker, Gilbert Collard, in a probe into posting images depicting gruesome crimes committed by the Islamic State terrorist group on their Twitter accounts back in 2015, media reported on Tuesday.

Le Pen displayed the three images, including one of the decapitated body of American journalist James Foley, after a prominent television interviewer compared her party to the Islamist militant group.

She had previously said she tweeted the images to highlight the absurdity of the comparison and had denied any wrongdoing, calling the trial politically motivated.

The tweets came one month after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, which resulted in 130 deaths and hundreds of injured. Even though Le Pen later deleted the photo of Foley, she was charged with “spreading violent images” in March 2018, several months after France’s lower parliamentary house, of which Le Pen was a member, stripped her of immunity so that the prosecutors could open a case against her over the tweets. Collard lost his parliamentary immunity in September 2017.

Le Pen’s defense lawyers said after the hearing that freedom of expression had been safeguarded.

Opinion polls show Le Pen will be President Emmanuel Macron’s main challenger in next year’s election.

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