Man accused of sharing video of computer game about Christchurch attack
According to the charge, at the time Mr Lorgat posted the clip, he intended or was reckless as to whether it would be a "direct or indirect encouragement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism".On 21 May 2023, he allegedly transmitted a video clip depicting the Stephen Balliet shooting on 9 October 2019.Extreme right-wing terrorist Balliet shot and killed a female passer-by and a man at a kebab shop, after failing to break into a synagogue in Halle, Germany.On 3 July 2024, Mr Lorgat allegedly posted a video clip depicting the Christchurch shooting and another video of the racially-motivated shooting in Buffalo in the US, where 10 black people were killed on 14 May 2022.Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said the case would be heard at Leicester Crown Court.She set a plea hearing for 7 November and a provisional 10-day trial from 20 July next year.The defendant was granted continued conditional bail.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Why Happy Face Killer wants Bryan Kohberger to be his cellmate
'Happy Face Killer' Keith Jesperson believes Bryan Kohberger would be safer sharing a cell with him in Oregon after the latter took a plea deal for killing four university students. Jesperson, 70, fears Kohberger, 30, will face grave danger if he stays housed in an Idaho prison as fellow inmates will want to teach him a lesson. 'His best hope is to be transferred to here, the max prison in Oregon to be away from those who want to make a name for themselves by killing him,' he wrote to Keith Rovere, a crime podcaster, according to Fox News Digital. 'This prison gets inmates from other states in order to protect them from the drama.' The former criminology student is currently being housed at the Idaho Maximum Security in Kuna, which is nearly 500 miles from Jesperson's lockup, the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Oregon, among other states, houses prisoners from other states when a security concern is present. Idaho is not part of the agreement, so it's unclear if the murderer will be able to seek reprieve in a different state. Authorities have acknowledged that Kohberger could face security concerns as his case made national headlines and many have strong opinions about the quadruple murder. Earlier this month, Kohberger pleaded guilty to killing Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle in their university housing in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022. Jesperson, who is serving multiple life sentences, killed at least eight women in the 1990s. He garnered his nickname 'Happy Face Killer' after often putting smiley faces on letters to investigators and reporters. Kohberger is expected to be housed in isolation while corrections determines where he will spend his life sentence. The 30-year-old's legal team had repeatedly brought up Kohberger's social awkwardness and autism as a reason he could be targeted in prison as well. 'In the general population, he will be singled out right away to be made a target for those who see him as weak for the crimes of that kind of murder,' the Happy Face Killer wrote to Rovere. 'Most likely, Idaho will put him in protective custody like Jeffrey [Dahmer]. But we all know how that ended.' Dahmer, a cannibalistic serial killer, was beaten to death by his cellmate in a Wisconsin prison at the age of 34. 'I will write to the Idaho Department of Corrections to tell them to consider sending Kohberger here to save them the high-risk security issues in protecting him in Idaho,' Jesperson wrote to Rovere. Kohberger took a controversial plea deal that spared him the death penalty, but will see him serve four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. The deal left unanswered lingering questions that a trial might have explored, such as Kohberger's motives, and divided the victims' families, with some left outraged that the quadruple killer now cannot be sentenced to execution or death by firing squad. The deal also had Kohberger give up his right to appeal the case. Several of the victims' loved ones shared their desire for Kohberger to be attacked in prison during their addresses to the court. And even though his fellow inmates already 'think he is a 'f**king weirdo,' a former police investigator warns, murder is not something Kohberger has to fear. Kohberger is 'vulnerable' being confined in the general population unit, retired NYPD inspector Paul Mauro admitted to Fox News, but can find some safety in the fact that 'Idaho is a death penalty state'. 'If you're in for life, and you kill somebody, well, that's going to get you to death penalty,' Mauro explained, suggesting that for most prisoners murder is too risky. The State of Idaho has not indicated that it will send Kohberger to a different state.
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Macrons v Candace Owens: lawsuit marks new phase in battle against conspiracy theories
When the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte, took the rare step this week of filing a US defamation lawsuit against the rightwing podcaster Candace Owens, it marked a new phase in a legal battle on both sides of the Atlantic against the false claim that Brigitte Macron is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux. The Macrons' US lawsuit attacked what it called the 'verifiably false and devastating lies' being repeated online by Owens that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born a man. The lawsuit said evidence clearly disproved this 'grotesque narrative', which had become 'a campaign of global humiliation' and 'relentless bullying on a worldwide scale'. The case prompted broader questions this week about how conspiracy theories spread worldwide, whether they can be stopped in the courts and what this false narrative, which began in France after the Covid pandemic, says about French society's distrust in politicians. 'This is now one of the biggest fake news stories worldwide in terms of popularity – a billion people have seen it,' said Emmanuelle Anizon, a senior journalist for the French weekly Nouvel Obs, who last year published a book, L'Affaire Madame, investigating the origins of the rumour in France. 'What's new is that for the first time, Emmanuel Macron has joined his wife in taking legal action.' The Macrons' US lawsuit states the accusation that Brigitte Macron was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux is completely false and Trogneux is in fact is her older brother. Trogneux, 80, lives in the northern French town of Amiens, where he grew up with Brigitte and four other siblings in a family famous for its local chocolate business. He was present in public alongside his Brigitte at Emmanuel Macron's two presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022. Owens, whose podcast and social media channels have an audience of millions, said this week she stood by her narrative. The false claim that Brigitte was a man first went viral in France in 2021, at a moment when distrust of politicians in was at a high, after the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) anti-government protest movement and the Covid pandemic that killed more than 130,000 people in France. In December 2021, a woman who used the name Amandine Roy and called herself a 'spiritual medium', broadcast a four-hour YouTube interview with Natacha Rey, 51, who had worked previously for a small essential oils business and described herself as 'an independent investigative journalist, self-taught, and not from the inner circle of mainstream media'. Rey said she had spent three years investigating Brigitte Macron, after questioning the first lady's body-shape in photos. Rey said she believed Brigitte Macron was actually a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux. Within hours, the interview had 500,000 views and the hashtag #Jean-MichelTrogneux was trending on social media in France, promoted by, among others, some far-right and anti-vaccine accounts. A small far-right newsletter had already published Rey's theories but it was the video interview that sent the claim viral. 'There was a deeper societal problem at that time in France: the mistrust of political, media and economic institutions,' Anizon said. 'There had been years of political health scandals worldwide and in France – from a contaminated blood scandal to the Mediator weight-loss drug. Many people had gradually reached a point of distrust, switching off traditional mainstream media and turning instead to online accounts – Covid and vaccine mistrust increased that.' The rumour spread in part because the Macrons' relationship had long been a topic of comment online. Brigitte Macron, who is 24 years older, first met Emmanuel Macron when she was a French teacher at his Jesuit secondary school in Amiens, directing him in a school play. The Macrons' US lawsuit this week stated: 'Through the school's theatre programme, president Macron and Mrs Macron formed a deeper intellectual connection.' It added: 'At all times the teacher-student relationship between Mrs Macron and President Macron remained within the bounds of the law.' Brigitte Macron, who has three children from her first marriage, divorced in 2006 and she and Emmanuel Macron married the following year when he was 30. In early 2022, after the first viral video allegations, Brigitte Macron and her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, filed a defamation case in France against Roy and Rey, who both denied wrongdoing. In September 2024, a Paris court found the two women guilty and ordered them to pay €8,000 in damages to Brigitte Macron and €5,000 in damages to Jean-Michel Trogneux. The women appealed against the verdict and, this month, they were acquitted by a Paris appeals court. The appeal court verdict did not imply that the claims that Brigitte Macron was a man were true, but instead judges ruled that the case against the women did not fit the definition of defamation. Brigitte Macron and Jean-Michel Trogneux have taken the case to France's highest appeals court, the cour de cassation. Brigitte Macron has filed a separate case for online harassment and 10 people will go on trial in Paris in October. Each time the Macrons' relationship is in the spotlight, the false allegations about gender spread again online. This was the case in May, when video images appeared to show Brigitte pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before they disembarked from a plane on a tour of Southeast Asia. Macron dismissed the incident as play-fighting, telling reporters that 'we are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife', and that it had been overblown into 'a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe'. Brigitte Macron has not spoken publicly on the false gender claims since 2022 when she told French radio, RTL, that allegations that 'I am my brother' were an 'impossible' attack on her parents' family tree. She told TF1 TV at the time she wanted to set an example so other people would not suffer in the same way. She said fighting online bullying 'is my battle'.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Will the ghost of Epstein finally bring down King Trump?
Brrrr. Brrrr. Brrrrrrr. That's the sound of Donald's Trump's distraction machine, which has been running at full power as the president tries his best to stop us all from talking about Jeffrey Epstein. Or, to be more specific, from talking about just how chummy he was with the dead paedophile. Though he's usually a master of controlling the narrative, none of Trump's normal distraction techniques seem to be working now. Indeed, at this point we should probably rename the Streisand effect the Trump-Epstein effect because the president's repeated insistence that there is NOTHING TO SEE HERE EXCEPT A VERY NASTY WITCH-HUNT only has people scrutinizing his dealings with Epstein more carefully. From South Park to Scotland to billboards in Times Square, Trump can't escape his past association with Epstein. Over the past couple of weeks, a lot of new information has come out about just how close Epstein and the president were. On 17 July, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported Trump allegedly sent Epstein a 50th birthday card in 2003 with a drawing of a naked woman and a message which said, in part, 'may every day be another wonderful secret.' Trump denied writing the card and filed a $10bn lawsuit against the rightwing paper and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, a day after the outlet published the story. Trump's lawsuit clearly didn't scare off the Journal because, on Wednesday, it published a new report stating Trump's name appears 'multiple times' in justice department files about Epstein. On Wednesday CNN also published newly uncovered photos and video footage of the two men together, including one of Epstein at Trump's wedding to Marla Maples at the Plaza hotel in New York in 1993 and footage from a 1999 Victoria's Secret fashion event. Then, on Thursday, the New York Times confirmed that Trump's name appeared on a contributor list for a book celebrating Epstein's 50th birthday, as the Journal first reported, along with a number of other well-known Epstein associates including Leslie Wexner, then the owner of Victoria's Secret. The Times further reported that in 1997 the president had written a note calling Epstein 'the greatest!' in a copy of Trump: The Art of the Comeback. While none of these new bits of information are evidence of criminal conduct on Trump's part, the president's furious reaction to anything Epstein-related, along with his administration's sudden U-turn on its promise to release damning evidence related to possible Epstein clients, certainly makes Trump look like he's got something to hide. And it's not just Trump, of course. The sudden flurry of reporting about Epstein means that a lot of powerful men, including Bill Clinton, who the Journal says also sent a birthday letter to the disgraced financier, have been having a bad couple of weeks. The big question now is this: will the renewed interest in Epstein blow over in a few more weeks or could this deal a serious political blow to Trump and his lackeys? Trump is nicknamed the 'comeback kid' for good reason: the man has an uncanny ability to shake off scandal. Still, nobody is completely untouchable; could the ghost of Epstein be the thing that finally topples King Trump from his throne? While that's obviously an impossible question to answer, there are a few ways this could all play out. The first, and the best-case scenario for Trump, is that interest in Epstein organically fizzles out. That seems unlikely to happen given how furious the president's base are; more than a third of them disapprove of how he's handled the Epstein files, according to a poll from Quinnipiac University. The New York Times calls this 'perhaps the most intraparty discontent Mr Trump has experienced as president'. The Democrats have also seized on the issue as a way to fight Trump and will probably do their best to keep it in the news. While the Democrats are normally placid, they have been very much been on the offense with the Epstein files. Another way (perhaps the most likely way) this could go is that the Trump administration brokers some sort of deal with Ghislaine Maxwell, the only person involved with Epstein who is in jail right now, in which she releases enough carefully curated information about the sex-trafficking case for Trump's base to be satisfied, allowing the president to move on from the matter. The deputy US attorney general has met with Maxwell twice this week to see if she might have 'information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims'. While Maxwell's lawyer has said Trump's Department of Justice has not offered clemency, Maxwell is rumored to be seeking a pardon. One can certainly imagine a situation in which she 'cooperates' in a way that is mutually beneficial to her and Trump. The third scenario, which may be wishful thinking, is that Trump can't contain the fallout over the Epstein files and the scandal massively hurts the Republicans in the midterms. One GOP senator has already warned that 'this is going to be an issue all the way through next year's election.' Another possibility is that Trump continues his distractions until one actually sticks. The gen Z Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost has joked that the 'White House is about to drop proof of aliens' to stop people talking about Epstein. Joke or not, there's certainly a non-zero chance of that happening. And if it's not aliens, maybe Trump will start a nuclear war to shut us all up. Whatever happens with Trump and Epstein, however, I think it's worth stressing that this case is about far more than the president. It's about scores of vulnerable girls who were exploited by powerful men and let down by the justice system and parts of the media, which didn't pursue the story for years. I can't help but notice how many Democrats only seemed to develop a passionate interest in the Epstein files when it became politically expedient for them to do so. Epstein's countless victims deserve far better than that. In 1965, 18-year-old Choi Mal-ja fought back against a man who she said was trying to rape her and bit off part of his tongue. Guess who prosecutors thought was in the wrong? Choi was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, while her alleged attacker got a lighter sentence. After being branded a criminal for 61 years, Choi, now 80, has finally received a formal apology from South Korean prosecutors. Surrogacy is booming and, thanks to many celebrities using surrogates to build their families, it feels like it has become normalized. However, surrogacy is an incredibly complex ethical issue and we should not minimize the physical and mental health risks that it entails. 'Washington rejected offers from the United Nations and family planning organisations to buy or ship the supplies to poor nations,' sources told Reuters. Instead the US government will spend $167,000 to burn them all. Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy Get Arwa Mahdawi's weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality after newsletter promotion A new study 'suggests that vitamin D supplementation may be a promising, low-cost strategy to support brain development while reducing racial disparities', according to a write-up in The Conversation. This gender-based preference feature was first introduced in Saudi Arabia in 2019. Competitor Lyft introduced a similar option in 2023. I keep seeing this ridiculous obfuscatory 'stalking' language across multiple different media outlets. Let's be very clear here: Palestinians are being deliberately starved by a US-backed Israel. They are not being 'stalked' by anything except US-funded drones. In a recent Instagram post the kids' entertainer and all-around good egg, wrote: 'To anyone asking to work with me who hasn't spoken out about Gaza: Thank you for the request. I'm not comfortable working with anyone who hasn't spoken out about Gaza.' This follows a huge harassment campaign by pro-Israel extremists against the entertainer. The likelihood of this happening is slim, but the whole charade shows you how many lawmakers think their job is to suck up to Trump rather than serve their constituents. Meet Leonardo da Pinchy: a New Zealand-based cat who can't stop purr-loining people's underwear – along with the occasional cashmere sweater. Leo da Pinchy's owner, Helen North, now spends a lot of time on a neighbourhood WhatsApp group and Facebook page asking people: 'Are these your undies?' North told reporters she hopes her cat burglar grows out of his dastardly ways soon: 'I don't want to do this for like, 15 years. This is a lot of admin.' Good thing da Pinchy is so cute, because he sounds like a real mew-sance. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
