Far-left activist Hadama Traoré was arrested in the no-go Paris suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis after attempting to pay homage to Mickael Harpon, an Islamic convert who murdered four people at a Paris police station.
The activist and founder the ‘The Revolution Is on the Move’ movement had previously called on supporters in Seine-Saint-Denis to demonstrate in support of Mr Harpon. He claims the suspected cop killer was not a terrorist and labels the media as disseminating “misinformation”, Le Parisien reports.
Harpon, an IT professional working at the police headquarters in Paris, killed four people including a female supervisor who he stabbed to death with a ceramic knife. The 45-year-old was later shot and died of his wounds.
Following his arrest, Traoré has been accused of “threats, an act of intimidation on a person exercising a public service or of collective utility, the threat of crime against people, and contempt”.
On Thursday morning, prosecutors added another charge to the list, stating that the activist was also looking at one count of “apology for terrorism”. Traoré’s home was also raided by police, with several electronic devices seized for further analysis.
Traoré had originally put out the call for a demonstration to pay tribute to the suspected terrorist on social media. He suffered a wave of backlash from both the public and several elected officials who called for the event to be banned, despite Traoré claiming the event was to pay tribute to the four victims of Harpon.
A self-described anti-police violence activist, Traoré had previously been involved with Theo Luhaka, a man who had claimed to have been a victim of police brutality, although later evidence put serious doubts on his claims.
During a pro-Theo demonstration last year, Traoré was convicted and fined 1,000 euros for insulting the then Minister of the Interior, Gérard Collomb, and several police union leaders after stating: “In our neighbourhoods, there are police officers who kill us, who rape us, who beat us. Who protects us?”
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