Imam Mohamed Tataiat sentenced to 4 months suspended sentence for an anti-Semitic prayer by the Toulouse Court of Appeal
Accused of having held an anti-Semitic prayer in December 2017 but released by the Toulouse Criminal Court on September 14, 2021, the imam of Empalot Mohamed Tataiat has just been sentenced to 4 months in prison suspended by the Court of Appeal From toulouse.
Four and a half years after the start of the investigation, Imam Mohamed Tataiat was sentenced by the Toulouse Court of Appeal to a four-month suspended prison sentence. According to justice, he held an anti-Semitic prayer on December 15, 2017, between the walls of the mosque located in the Empalot district, in Toulouse. That day, he allegedly urged his followers to kill Jews in a speech read in Arabic and broadcast live on Youtube.
During the investigation by the police, several interpreters had translated these words by the following sentence: “The last judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews.” But according to Mohamed Tataiat, “it was not an order but a warning for Muslims not to participate in this movement. Otherwise it will be the end of the universe. This sentence has been decontextualized”.
6 months in prison required
On May 30, facing the magistrates of the Court of Appeal, the Imam even assured that all the Salafists of the Empalot mosque had been dismissed. “I am speaking to everyone. But if a faithful does not accept peaceful debate, on the sidelines”.
This was not the opinion of Hassen Chalghouli, the president of the conference of Imams of France. This close friend of Emmanuel Macron had traveled to Toulouse to testify on the day of the appeal trial. “His speech is dangerous, it leads to violence. I condemned his anti-Semitic remarks”, he had warned; very worried.
During his requisitions, the Advocate General had requested a 6-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of €10,000. “Freedom of expression cannot be the false nose of the call to hatred, the call to murder. Mr. Tataiat, that day you fired heavy weapons in front of an impressionable audience”, he insisted at the end of May.