PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Thursday said those behind death threats against a judge and prosecutors trying her in a graft trial should be punished, in her first comments on a police investigation into the abuse.
Reuters reported this week that police are investigating threats against a judge and two prosecutors in the trial, which could derail Le Pen’s hopes of running in the 2027 presidential vote where polls have her as frontrunner.
Lead prosecutors Louise Neyton and Nicolas Barret have asked for a five-year ban from public office for Le Pen. Three judges, led by Benedicte de Perthuis, are due to give a verdict on March 31.
Le Pen said the threats, which came in now-deleted comments on two articles in far-right website Riposte Laique (Secular Response), should not be trivialized.
“This serious trend, which consists of threatening to kill anyone — police officers, judges, elected officials, artists, etc. — with whom some feel in disagreement, is a worrying development which, given its scale, must be the subject of reflection by the justice system,” she wrote on X.
“Prosecutions must therefore be systematically initiated and the perpetrators convicted,” added Le Pen, whose late-father’s often-inflammatory rhetoric led to convictions for inciting racial hatred and condoning war crimes.
Le Pen, her National Rally (RN) party and some two dozen party figures are accused of diverting funds intended for European Parliament staff. In a TV interview on Wednesday night, Le Pen reiterated she was innocent of the charges against her.
She said she could not imagine judges would deprive the French of choosing their presidential candidate and that barring her from office would be an attack on democracy.
The threats around the trial have raised concerns in France about growing risks of violence against figures of authority, including thousands of verbal and physical attacks against mayors, as well as a suspected attempt to ambush a prosecutor looking into organized crime that was foiled by police.
“This is not a specific feature of this trial but a more general and very worrying trend,” Marie-Suzanne Le Queau, the attorney general of the Paris Court of Appeal, told France Inter radio on Wednesday. “All those who exercise authority ... are increasingly the target of death threats and completely uninhibited remarks.”
France’s Le Pen condemns death threats against those trying her
https://arab.news/4efnc
France’s Le Pen condemns death threats against those trying her
- Three judges, led by Benedicte de Perthuis, are due to give a verdict on March 31
- Le Pen said the threats, which came in now-deleted comments on two articles in far-right website Riposte Laique (Secular Response), should not be trivialized.
Bangladesh begins exhuming mass grave from 2024 uprising
- The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power — deaths that formed part of her conviction last month for crimes against humanity
DHAKA: Bangladeshi police began exhuming on Sunday a mass grave believed to contain around 114 unidentified victims of a mass uprising that toppled autocratic former prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year.
The UN-supported effort is being advised by Argentine forensic anthropologist Luis Fondebrider, who has led recovery and identification missions at mass graves worldwide for decades.
The bodies were buried at the Rayerbazar Graveyard in Dhaka by the volunteer group Anjuman Mufidul Islam, which said it handled 80 unclaimed bodies in July and another 34 in August 2024 — all people reported to have been killed during weeks of deadly protests.
The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power — deaths that formed part of her conviction last month for crimes against humanity.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Md Sibgat Ullah said investigators believed the mass grave held roughly 114 bodies, but the exact number would only be known once exhumations were complete.
“We can only confirm once we dig the graves and exhume the bodies,” Ullah told reporters.
- ‘Searched for him’ -
Among those hoping for answers is Mohammed Nabil, who is searching for the remains of his brother Sohel Rana, 28, who vanished in July 2024.
“We searched for him everywhere,” Nabil told AFP.
He said his family first suspected Rana’s death after seeing a Facebook video, then recognized his clothing — a blue T-shirt and black trousers — in a photograph taken by burial volunteers.
Exhumed bodies will be given post-mortem examinations and DNA testing. The process is expected to take several weeks to complete.
“It’s been more than a year, so it won’t be possible to extract DNA from the soft tissues,” senior police officer Abu Taleb told AFP. “Working with bones would be more time-consuming.”
Forensic experts from four Dhaka medical colleges are part of the team, with Fondebrider brought in to offer support as part of an agreement with the UN rights body the OHCHR.
“The process is complex and unique,” Fondebrider told reporters. “We will guarantee that international standards will be followed.”
Fondebrider previously headed the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, founded in 1984 to investigate the tens of thousands who disappeared during Argentina’s former military dictatorship.
Authorities say the exhumed bodies will be reburied in accordance with religious rites and their families’ wishes.
Hasina, convicted in absentia last month and sentenced to death, remains in self-imposed exile in India.
