Marine Le Pen is ordered to stand trial over pictures of ISIS murders

Marine Le Pen is ordered to stand trial for tweeting pictures of ISIS murders that showed US journalist being beheaded

  • Le Pen shared the gruesome images shortly after the 2015 jihadist Paris attacks 
  • She is accused of circulating ‘violent messages’ that can be viewed by a minor
  • The charges carry a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a large fine 

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been ordered to stand trial for tweeting pictures of Islamic State atrocities, a judicial source said today.

Le Pen shared the gruesome images in December 2015, a few weeks after ISIS jihadists killed 130 people in attacks in Paris.

A judge in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre ordered that the National Rally leader stand trial on charges of circulating ‘violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography or seriously harm human dignity’ and that can be viewed by a minor.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros ($85,000).

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen (pictured during the EU election campaign last month) has been ordered to stand trial over pictures of ISIS murders 

Last year, an investigative magistrate called for Le Pen to undergo psychiatric tests in connection with the ISIS tweets.

The 50-year-old trained lawyer has denounced the case as a violation of her freedom of expression.

She tweeted the images after a French journalist drew a comparison between Islamic State group and her party.

One of the pictures showed the body of James Foley, an American journalist beheaded by the Sunni extremists.

Another showed a man in an orange jumpsuit being run over by a tank, and the third a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage.

‘Daesh is this!’ Le Pen wrote in a caption, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The prospect of a trial is a further legal blow for Le Pen, who was ordered last month to reimburse the European Parliament nearly 300,000 euros in funds she was accused of defrauding the EU.

The parliament claimed she used funds destined for EU parliamentary assistants to pay an aide for work carried out in France. 

One of the gruesome pictures shared by Le Pen was an image showing the body of beheaded U.S. journalist James Foley. He is seen here in an ISIS video moments before the murder

One of the gruesome pictures shared by Le Pen was an image showing the body of beheaded U.S. journalist James Foley. He is seen here in an ISIS video moments before the murder 

Le Pen’s defeated President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party at last month’s European Parliament elections. 

The narrow victory came two years after Le Pen lost out to Macron in the 2017 presidential election. 

She reached the final round that year by polling ahead of the traditional socialist and conservative parties in the first round. 

However she lost the run-off vote to Emmanuel Macron, whose party also swept to victory in parliamentary elections that year. 

She has tried to steer the party away from the racist and anti-Semitic connotations it had under her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. 

Mr Le Pen senior shocked France by reaching the presidential run-off in 2002. 

He was heavily beaten by then-President Jacques Chirac as voters rallied to keep the far-right leader out. 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk