Pro-terror cartoons put artist on trial
Last Updated: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 | 10:40 AM ET
The Associated Press
Spanish prosecutors are seeking 18-month jail terms for a Spanish cartoonist and a Moroccan colleague charged with praising Islamic terrorism in writings, drawings and videos posted on the internet, a court official said Tuesday.
One of the sketches attributed to Spaniard Gonzalo Lopez Royo depicts buildings resembling the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsing, with people dressed in the festive red-and-white garb of Spain's running of the bulls scurrying away. Another shows U.S. Marines in the crosshairs of a gun.
Since 2006 Lopez Royo has also posted more than 1,500 entries in a restricted-access web forum in which he praised al-Qaeda and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its former leader in Iraq, prosecutor Teresa Sandoval said in a charge sheet presented at the suspects' trial on Monday.
'I just wanted to comment on news in a positive way and did not mean to praise bad people.' —Defendant Gonzalo Lopez Royo
In an entry posted in May 2006, Lopez Royo wrote "it is clear that when I work on mujahedeen, my drawings are not simple portraits or caricatures. It is obvious that I am glorifying them," the sheet says.
Publicly praising or defending terrorism is a crime in Spain.
Lopez Royo, who is in his 30s and runs a comic book store in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, testified that he rejects terrorism and did not want to offend anyone.
"I just wanted to comment on news in a positive way and did not mean to praise bad people," he said.
The Moroccan, Fath Allah Sadaq, is charged with using Lopez Royo's drawings to accompany Islamic terror attack videos he posted on the internet.
There are unconfirmed reports that a verdict is expected in the coming weeks.
A court-appointed psychologist testified at the trial that Lopez Royo has a personality disorder and low self-esteem that causes him to want to draw attention to himself. But Lopez Royo knew what he was doing with the writings and drawings, the psychologist told the El Mundo newspaper.
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