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A 44-year-old nurse was sentenced for threatening deputies with death, promising them the guillotine.
“I just wanted to scare them,” argued the defendant in court.
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He admitted having “wanted to scare”: a 44-year-old antivax was sentenced Thursday evening in Paris to ten months’ imprisonment, a sentence fitted out under an electronic bracelet, for having threatened to kill dozens of deputies of the majority at the beginning of February.
On January 5, in the middle of a debate in the Assembly on the vaccine pass, Xavier S. sent a first email, which he signed with his own name, to 77 deputies. In this 26-page writing, he says in particular that he wants to “throw a grenade” every time he meets a police car.
On February 2, he sent a new email to 81 majority deputies. Entitled “near future”, it is accompanied by two videos: one shows the episode of the “shirt ripped off” of an Air France executive by employees in 2015, the other an execution by guillotine. “The first video shows what is likely to happen to you in the best of cases and the second in the worst”, writes Xavier S. to the parliamentarians, wishing them a “good night”. He sent the same message to Jérôme Salomon, Director General of Health, to Yves Lévy, former president of Inserm and husband of the former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, as well as to the editorialist Christophe Barbier.
On reading the facts with which he is accused, Xavier S., short hair and fairly full beard, opines in the box: “That’s it”. He easily admits having sent these messages from Switzerland where he worked as a nurse, but not the death threats.
“A little slap”
Xavier S., who expresses himself in strong language, prefers to speak of a “warning”. Referring to the movement of “yellow vests”, he adds: “We can always dream, but if the people take Parliament, it may happen to them”.
This guillotine video, which symbolizes for him “the French Revolution”, he sent it because, he says, parliamentarians were “whistled, booed” by deputies of the majority in the Assembly. The latter “deserve a little swatter, a little slap”, believes Xavier S.
– But there you send a video of decapitation, it is a killing, underlines the president.
– I didn’t kill anyone, replies the defendant.
– We would not be there otherwise, but in front of the Court of Assizes, tackles the magistrate.
“Scare Them”
Xavier S. recalls that he signed the messages with his name. “I just wanted to scare them,” he says. “They received this video and a week later we weren’t talking about the Covid at all. I don’t know if it’s due to me or to the decline of the variant, ”he says. The president rolls her eyes.
– Yves Lévy is not a deputy, why did you send him the video, asks his lawyer?
– He did everything to stop Didier Raoult, declares Xavier S.
– He is someone I deeply despise, insists the defendant.
– If we sent decapitation videos to all the people we despise…, sighs the president.
“Very special profile”
Until the deliberation, Xavier S. finds it difficult to give up his smile. Worried about the “very special profile” of this former drug addict and a “risk of leaving for Switzerland”, the prosecution requires one year of firm imprisonment with continued detention.
Prison, “this is not what will reconcile him with the Republic”, pleads the lawyer for Xavier S. “The court does not have this ambition. (…) One thing is certain: we cannot choose fear to convey our ideas”, underlines the president.
Xavier S. was also ordered to pay 250 euros to each of the 74 deputies who joined as civil parties, as well as a symbolic euro to the National Assembly and to Yves Lévy. He had already been convicted in 2019 for death threats.
(AFP)