An influencer who mockingly asked what side dishes should accompany an Israeli baby who was reportedly burned to death in an oven has been given a ten-month suspended jail sentence.
Paris’ judicial court today handed 37-year-old Warda Anwar, also known as Haneia Nakei, the sentence after she was prosecuted for apologising for terrorism and publicly inciting hatred.
In a video published to the Parisian influencer’s Instagram account, which has nearly 11,000 followers at time of publication, she reacted to information reported by an Israeli rescuer, who claimed they found a baby placed in an oven by Hamas during the terror group’s incursion into Israel.
She said: ‘The story of the baby who was put in the oven… what will be the accompaniment? You haven’t asked yourself the question?
A voice off-screen can be heard saying: ‘What to have with a leg of baby?.. chips, ketchup…marinade it with salt and thyme, barbeque sauce.’
37-year-old Warda Anwar, also known as Haneia Nakei, (pictured) was given a 10-month suspended prison sentence
She said in the video: ‘The story of the baby who was put in the oven… what will be the accompaniment? You haven’t asked yourself the question?
Prosecutor Grégory Weill told the court that the comments ’caused an extremely significant stir’, and aimed to ‘ridicule the information coming from Israel’, and to ‘whitewash Hamas of its barbarity’ through an ‘extreme minimization of the terrorist act’ against a backdrop of ‘conspiracy breeding ground’, Le Parisien reported.
The influencer denied claims that she was trying to provoke people, claiming instead she denounced what she called ‘propaganda’ and ‘media manipulation.’
‘For me it does not exist, it is not possible that we could do such an atrocity,’ she said.
‘It was misinterpreted, I was clumsy, but I did not intend to harm anyone.’
When asked whether she regretted releasing the video to her fans, she told the court: ‘I rather regret that I did not have the intelligence to see and read them as I wanted to do convey the message.’
She refused say that Hamas was a terrorist organisation, though admitted the October 7 incursion was a terror attack
‘For me it does not exist, it is not possible that we could do such an atrocity,’ she said of the story of the baby left in an oven by Hamas
Israelis are still mourning the loss of their loved ones in the Hamas incursion
She also refused say that Hamas was a terrorist organisation, though admitted the October 7 incursion was a terror attack.
Referring to the November 2015 attack in Paris, she said: ‘Terrorism is what we experienced in France, the Bataclan… it’s killing people without distinction, for an ideology. I have not advocated this type of thing and I never will.’
On top of her 10-month sentenced, which was suspended for two years, she has pay to go through a ‘citizenship course’ to relearn the ‘values of the [French] Republic.’
She also has to pay 1,000 euros in compensation and 500 euros in procedural costs to each of the six groups that initially brought the civil suit against her.
The video shocked France, with the nation’s Minister for the Interior asking Paris’ prosecutor’s office to investigate the matter criminally.
Anwar’s lawyer, Ilyacine Maallaoui, told MailOnline that he was appealing one of the charges, incitement to hatred, claiming it was an issue of free speech under the French Constitution, but said he and his client accepted the court’s decision with regard to the terrorism apology charge.
‘With regard to incitement to hatred, the [priority question of constitutionality] is following its legal course before the Court of Cassation and ultimately before the Constitutional Council, basically we remain in line with what we were able to express during the debates.’
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