- i24news
- International
- Europe
- French anti-Semitic comedian M'Bala M'Bala sentenced to 4 months in jail
French anti-Semitic comedian M'Bala M'Bala sentenced to 4 months in jail
The polemicist's lawyer, Me David De Stefano, said his client would appeal the two decisions
Controversial French comedian Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala was sentenced on Friday to four months in prison and ordered to pay a 10,000 euro fine following a decision in two separate cases.
The polemicist's lawyer, Me David De Stefano, indicated that his client was going to appeal the two decisions.
Dieudonné, 55, was absent from the audience.
In the first case, M'Bala was tried for "public insult to an official," in this case Frédéric Potier, former interministerial delegate for the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred, in a video broadcast in September 2020.
The court sentenced him to a fine of 10,000 euros.
He was implicated in another case for "public insult of an anti-Semitic nature" and "contestation of a crime against humanity" in two other videos dating from May 2020.
For the second case, he was sentenced to four months' imprisonment.
Dieudonné maintains that he is not the author of the incriminated videos. This is "deepfake," a very sophisticated digital faking technique, the polemicist explained during his trial in May.
But he did not convince the court. "The character appearing on the screen, identified by investigators as Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala, has the same name, the same appearance, the same voice and the same lexical references as the defendant," said the court.