Islamist Djamel Beghal is out of prison on Monday but uncertainties remain about his fate

" We are working with the Algerian authorities, things are moving forward, it's a delicate job, and I hope we'll find the right solution ," Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet said Thursday. on Radio Clbadique baderting that " in any case, Beghal will be under absolute surveillance ".

Regarded as the mentor of Chérif Kouachi and Amédy Coulibaly two of the perpetrators of the January 2015 attacks in Paris, Djamel Beghal, 52, has been in the sights of the French authorities since the mid-1990s. was declared deportable in 2007, two years after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for terrorist criminal conspiracy.

On Monday, he finished serving a second 10-year prison sentence for an escape 2010 by Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem, formerly of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (19459002), sentenced to life for the attack on the RER station Musée d'Orsay in 1995 in Paris.

Detained in the prison of Vezin-le-Coquet (Ile-et-Vilaine), he obtained an exceptional reduction of sentence of 20 days which advanced the date of his release, originally scheduled for August 5.

Return to his native country? 19659006] For several weeks, the French authorities arees, who wish to see this cumbersome character return to Algeria, discuss with Algiers the conditions for his return to his native country he had left at the age of 21 to come to France.

According to a source close to the record in Algiers, the discussions would be at the stage of "the mechanism for issuing the consular laissez-pbader", a travel document issued to an Algerian national wishing to return to his country but without a valid pbadport.
Beghal is in favor of this option. "Ten years ago, we blocked his deportation to Algeria because of the risk of torture, and the climate is now more peaceful
," said his lawyer Bérenger Tourné.

Unpublished situation

For a good connoisseur of these files, it is impossible that the expulsion is done without the agreement of the country of return. If Algiers gives the green light, an expulsion order will be issued and Beghal sent directly back to Algeria. But if the agreement is slow to intervene, the Islamist can be placed in a detention center, for 45 days maximum, like all foreigners in an irregular situation awaiting expulsion. He can finally be placed under house arrest if no agreement with Algiers is found.

" Djamel Beghal does not want to find himself again under house arrest, which amounts to being deprived of freedom to come and go (…) Nothing should oppose his expulsion since all know he is Algerian "said Bérenger Tourné. As for the hypothesis of a refusal by Algeria to welcome his client, he speaks of " an unprecedented situation ": " If Algeria wants more from him then there is no doubt about his nationality, then, it makes him a kind of stateless, which is contrary to international law ", he argues.

17 years in French prisons

On the day of his release, Djamel Beghal carried out nearly 17 years of detention in French prisons. He has become a reference for three generations of jihadist apprentices. Sentenced in 2005, he admitted, before retracting that he had been tortured by Emirati investigators, to have been sentenced by a relative of Ben, Laden to prepare an attack on the US embbady and cultural center. It is at the prison of Fleury-Mérogis that he meets the future perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo killings and the Hyper Cacher store. According to the investigators, he becomes their " mentor ", respected for his "religious science". Released in 2009, he is under house arrest in Cantal, pending a possible expulsion – which is opposed by the ECHR. Photos show him alongside Amédy Coulibaly, who came to visit him. He was arrested again in 2010, and spent a total of about 10 years in solitary confinement.