He was questioned again by police on Friday morning as part of an investigation into a social media post he made last week expressing his solidarity with Japanese terrorist Kōzō Okamoto.
Okamoto was convicted of a terrorist attack that killed 26 people at Ben Gurion International Airport in 1972.
In his post on Friday, Hassan, who is an MEP with the left-wing France Unbowed party, said he had two types of CBD, a chemical that is found in the cannabis plant but does not have the same effects as THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The first type complied with legal regulations, but the second, he wrote, contained “residues of synthetic drugs,” according to investigators.
“I told them where I bought this CBD legally. A simple check is going on about the origin of the CBD,” Hassan added.
Hassan also criticized the investigation of his now-deleted post on X, accusing the “pro-Israel lobby in France” of targeting his “political views on the genocide in Gaza and Palestine.”
He said that 13 out of 16 cases against him were dismissed. Hassan’s team also said that the temporary detention was a violation of the immunity of the member of parliament as an MEP.
However, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Friday that while Hassan has been cleared of 13 cases, he still faces nine separate investigations against him. Prosecutors added that police investigating open offenses could place MEPs under police custody without going through the process of removing their parliamentary immunity.
