French far-right leader Marine Le Pen could face prison for tweeting ISIS images

Jane Onyanga-Omara | USA TODAY

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front party, could face up to three years in prison after being charged with tweeting images of gruesome atrocities committed by the Islamic State.

The three images Le Pen posted on Twitter in Dec. 2015 include a photo of the body of James Foley, the American freelance journalist who was decapitated in Syria by ISIS in 2014. The other images were of a man on fire in a cage, and a tank driving over someone.

Le Pen, 49, was charged with circulating “violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography or seriously harm human dignity" by a judge in Nanterre, western Paris, on Thursday, the AFP news agency reported. It came after lawmakers voted in November to strip her of her immunity from prosecution as a member of Parliament.

“It’s clearly aimed at silencing me. But I will not be silenced,” Le Pen told reporters Thursday. She said being found guilty would be a “medal of patriotism and defense of the French people.”

Le Pen’s tweets came weeks after the ISIS terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people in November 2015. Journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin said on French TV that her party had a “community of spirit” with the extremist group to which Le Pen responded: “(ISIS) is THIS!” — along with the images.

Foley’s parents John and Diane Foley said at the time of the tweets that they were “deeply disturbed.”

“Our family was informed this morning that Marine Le Pen, a French politician, tweeted a shamefully uncensored picture of our son,” they said in a statement.

“We are deeply disturbed by the unsolicited use of Jim for Le Pen’s political gain and hope that the picture of our son, along with the two other graphic photographs, are taken down immediately.”

Le Pen later deleted the photo of Foley, 40, who was abducted by ISIS while reporting on the Syrian civil war in 2012. She said she had not known his identity.

Le Pen lost the French presidential election by a landslide in May last year, but won a seat in the French Parliament for the first time in June. Her hopes of becoming the main opposition to President Emmanuel Macron failed to materialize as the National Front won just eight seats in the 577-seat lower house of Parliament.