Suspended jail sentence required for CGT chief after leaflet on Hamas assault in Israel | EUROtoday

A one-year suspended jail sentence was requested on Thursday March 28 towards a CGT chief from the North, tried in Lille for “apology of terrorism” after a controversial leaflet supporting the Palestinians. The resolution was reserved till April 18.

“This leaflet presents these horrors as if they were inevitable”launched the prosecutor. “It is a legitimization of a mass attack under the cover of a historical analysis”she added, contemplating the offense “perfectly characterized”.

As chargeable for the publication of the CGT 59 web site, Jean-Paul Delescaut, 57, is on trial for “public apology for an act of terrorism” and “public incitement to hatred or violence”, in following the printed of a message on October 10, 2023, three days after Hamas' bloody assault on Israel.

One passage was notably known as into query: “The horrors of the illegal occupation have piled up. Since Saturday [7 octobre 2023], they receive the responses they provoked. » Removed from the website, the leaflet was replaced by a version “confederal” corrected three days later.

A single assertion, then silence

Shaved head, glasses, earrings and white hooded sweatshirt, the commerce unionist, pumped up after being welcomed to the cheers of a number of hundred activists, who made him a guard of honor upon his arrival at courtroom , instructed the viewers that he solely wished to make an announcement.

In a barely hesitant tone, he insisted on the “values ​​of humanity, defense of employees, against social injustice and for solidarity between peoples” of the CGT. “We condemn terrorist acts in general and of course that of October 7. We condemn all violence”he defined, repeating that he was talking on behalf of the “collective”.

During 4 hours of listening to, this caregiver on the Valenciennes hospital middle (North) remained virtually emotionless within the face of the questions from the president and the attorneys, opposing a wall of silence to every query: “I will stand by my statement. »

Support from Sophie Binet and Jean-Luc Mélenchon

His attorneys, M^are Arié Alimi and Ioannis Kappopoulos, each pleaded for acquittal, M^e Alimi elevating an issue of interpretation. “This leaflet is not a masterpiece, but at no time does it mention Hamas’ modalities of action”nor does it current them in a positive gentle, he famous.

Lawyers for the civil events, together with the Organization of European Jews and the Israelite Community Association (ACI) of Lille, requested the conviction of the CGT activist.

The basic secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, who got here to Lille at noon in help, as did the chief of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, testified in a three-minute video broadcast on the trial. She believes that the arrests of union activists “are part of a very worrying climate of repression of trade union freedoms”, with “more than 1,000 activists prosecuted in the name of actions carried out collectively by the CGT” towards pension reform.