At first glance, the story seemed distressingly familiar: back in June 2023, a Syrian asylum seeker went on a stabbing spree at a playground in the French city of Annecy, stabbing four toddlers and two adults. There have been numerous incidents in recent years of Muslim migrants in France stabbing people in random attacks, often while screaming “Allahu akbar.”
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In this case, however, the attacker shouted “In the name of Jesus Christ” as he did his stabbing and claimed to be a Christian. It seemed as if the left had at last the Christian terrorist that looms so large in its mythmaking but has been so elusive in real life. Recently, however, the whole media construct came crashing down.
A young Frenchman named Henri d’Anselme stopped the attacker’s stabbing spree. Now, d’Anselme has revealed on Legend, a popular French podcast, that a magistrate told him that the perpetrator was not a Christian but a Muslim who had been a member of Bashar al-Assad’s army in Syria and later of the Islamic State. He claimed falsely to be a Christian to gain asylum in Europe.
Here is a rough translation of what d’Anselme says in this video, beginning at 56:42. D’Anselme began by recounting his encounter with the attacker in mid-attack:
…so he shouts “in the name of Jesus Christ,” he starts to say, “My wife, my —” I don’t really know what, finally, I don’t remember very well, and I answer, “No, no, no, not Jesus Christ, you have nothing to do with Jesus,” just, in fact, I tell him NO, I shout that. “To me, you have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, you are the devil,” I said that “you are the devil,” and that’s what I said.
That was true enough, but the next day, d’Anselme woke up to find himself in the media crosshairs. They had found their Christian terrorist at last and were anxious to get the word from someone who had been on the scene. D’Anselme recounted:
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The next morning, when I was asked, “But what do you think of a Christian who shouted ‘In the name of Jesus Christ?’” I told them then, “I don’t know if he is a Christian or not, it’s almost — don’t look at — what I know is that what he did is fundamentally anti-Christian. We can’t kill children, who are innocence and purity, especially in the name of Jesus Christ, who offered himself as a sacrifice for you. See, it’s not possible, it’s against everything, it’s against the whole Bible.”
This response, of course, made no impression on the media at all. Le Monde’s headline was typical: “Annecy knife attack: Suspect Abdelmessih H. is a Christian Syrian refugee who arrived from Sweden.” Henri d’Anselme, however, was later given additional information that wasn’t given to the media. He continued:
We had answers to this question since then. Yes, yes, the guy’s file is known now. I met, moreover, the magistrate who had taken care of his file. He was a former member of Bashar al-Assad’s army, a deserter, affiliated with the Islamic State, who did stupid things with the Islamic State, who found after a while that it wasn’t very funny, who therefore wanted to ask for political asylum in Europe. But he was told that to be able to have political asylum in Europe, you have to be either an Eastern Christian or homosexual, declaring as an Eastern Christian or declaring as homosexual will make the process easier for you. Therefore, he declared himself an Eastern Christian, so in fact he faked his identity in Turkey, and in fact, after that, he began a relationship with a real Christian. Suddenly he rebuilt his life with her in Sweden, but after a while the girl realized the deception. They still had a kid together and so on, but he never went to mass….
The Swedish authorities caught him. They looked at his file, they said, “In fact, you have nothing to do here,” so he was deported. He arrived in Switzerland. He applied for asylum in Switzerland. Switzerland told him no. He arrived in France, he applied for asylum in France. France said no, but he stayed in France, and so he wasn’t Catholic. His file says no….
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Related: Why the Media Spin on the German Christmas Market Attack Can’t Be Trusted
Will all those who insisted that the attacker was a Christian and that claims to the contrary were “fake news” retract and apologize? Of course not. The fake story has gone around the world and entered the popular consciousness. The Christian terrorist story was always too good to check, and despite Henri d’Anselme’s revelation, it will live on now.
