France expels "mentor" of jihadist attackers of 2015 in Algeria



[ad_1]

Djamel Beghal was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2005 after being sent to France following his arrest in the United Arab Emirates shortly after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States.

a network charged by Osama bin Laden to attack US interests in France and is considered by the French authorities as a mentor for several generations of aspiring jihadists.

His activities also highlighted the struggle of the French authorities to prevent Islamic radicalization in prisons, which has proved to be a fertile breeding ground for jihadist fighters.

Beghal, now 52 years old and stripped of his French nationality, was released Monday from the Vezin-le-Coquet prison near the western city of Rennes

. At Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris for a flight to Algiers, a source close to the case told AFP

Beghal had been under surveillance for a suspected radicalism by the services French intelligence. since the mid-1990s, following his arrival in the country since his native Algeria at the age of 21 years.

While he was serving his first prison term, Beghal met Cherif Kouachi, one of the brothers who mbadacred 12 people in an attack on Charlie Hebdo
Amedy Coulibaly, the man who killed a policewoman and then four shoppers in a Jewish supermarket just outside Paris the same month, was also under the influence of Beghal at Fleury Prison. Merogis south of Paris, where he also Kouachi

After their release, Kouachi and Coulibaly visited Beghal while he was serving his sentence under house arrest.

Beghal was arrested again in 2010 as part of a plot to free him as well as Smain Ait Ali. Belkacem, an Algerian who helped carry out bombings in Paris in 1995 and killed eight people.

France has suffered a wave of deadly attacks since January 2015 that have killed nearly 250 people. measures under a new, tough anti-terrorism law pbaded last year.

[ad_2]
Source link