The "Chalabi network" was the name given to a French Islamist network led by Mohamed Chalabi that supported the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) during the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s. [1] A total of 138 suspected members of the group were subject to a controversial mass trial that took place from September 1998 to January 1999 following police raids in 1994 and 1995, with charges of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise"; [2] in the end 87 people were convicted. [3]
The 138 suspects tried in 1998 were arrested in two mass-arrests, the first in November 1994 when 93 people were arrested in a single day, and on 25 June 1995 when 131 people were arrested in five different cities across France. [3] The highly controversial trial was held in a prison gymnasium on the outskirts of Paris because of a lack of space in the central court house. [3] 120 lawyers and 300 police took part in the trial which was described as the largest in France in 50 years. [4] The trial was heavily criticised by civil rights activists and newspapers, and most defence lawyers walked out of the trial on the first day. [4] Most of the trial consisted of the reading of a 600-page summary of the 50,000-page indictment. [5]
A total of 87 suspects were convicted in the trial [3] that concluded in January 1999; the three prime defendants, including the presumed ringleader Mohamed Chalabi, Mohamed Kerrouche and Mourad Tacine, received sentences of eight years in prison to be followed by permanent expulsion from France to Algeria for collecting weapons, money and counterfeit documents on behalf of Muslim fundamentalists fighting to overthrow the Algerian government. [5]
Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, or simply Abu Hamza, is an Egyptian cleric who was the imam of Finsbury Park Mosque in London, England, where he preached Islamic fundamentalist views.
Robert Denard was a French soldier of fortune and mercenary. He served as the de facto military leader of the Comoros twice with him first serving from 13 May 1978 to 15 December 1989 and again briefly from 28 September to 5 October 1995. Sometimes known under the aliases Gilbert Bourgeaud and Saïd Mustapha Mhadjou, he was known for having performed various jobs in support of Françafrique—France's sphere of influence in its former colonies in Africa—for Jacques Foccart, co-ordinator of President Charles de Gaulle's African policy.
The 2003 Casablanca bombings were a series of suicide bombings on May 16, 2003, in Casablanca, Morocco. The attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country's history. Forty-five people were killed in the attacks. The suicide bombers came from the shanty towns of Sidi Moumen, a poor suburb of Casablanca. That same year, Adil Charkaoui, a Casablanca-based resident who was issued a Security Certificate in Montreal, Canada, was charged with supporting terrorism, and rumours allege he may have played a financial role in the bombings.
A forced confession is a confession obtained from a suspect or a prisoner by means of torture or other forms of duress. Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession is not valid in revealing the truth. The individuals being interrogated may agree to the story presented to them or even make up falsehoods themselves in order to satisfy the interrogator and discontinue their suffering.
Jean-Louis Bruguière was the leading French investigating magistrate in charge of counter-terrorism affairs. He was appointed in 2004 vice-president of the Paris Court of Serious Claims. He has garnered controversy for various acts, including the indictment of Rwandan president Paul Kagame for the assassination in 1994 of Juvenal Habyarimana. Washington Post journalist Dana Priest has cited him as saying that he had in the past ordered the arrest of more than 500 suspects, some with the assistance of US authorities. According to the investigative reporter, who described the workings of Alliance Base, a CTIC joint counter-terrorist operations center, involving the DGSE, the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies, Bruguière declared that "[he had] good connections with the CIA and FBI." Bruguière has since temporarily left his judicial functions to dedicate himself to politics, joining Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) conservative party. However, he was appointed by the European Union at the US Department of Treasury to oversee the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program.
Lounès Matoub was an Algerian Kabylian singer, poet, thinker who sparked an intellectual revolution, and mandole player who was an advocate of the Berber cause, human rights, and secularism in Algeria throughout his life.
Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, is a convicted criminal, currently serving an Australian custodial sentence of fifteen years, with a non-parole period of twelve years for intentionally being the leader and a member of a terrorist organisation. Benbrika was one of 17 men arrested in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne in November 2005, charged with being members of a terrorist organisation and of planning terrorist attacks on targets within Australia. Benbrika is alleged to be the spiritual leader of the group. All 17 men pleaded not guilty. On 15 September 2008 Benbrika was found guilty as charged and subsequently sentenced.
The state of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been criticized by Iranians and international human rights activists, by writers, and NGOs. The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have condemned prior and ongoing abuses in Iran in published critiques and several resolutions. The government is criticized both for restrictions and punishments that follow the Islamic Republic's constitution and law, and for "extrajudicial" actions by state actors, such as the torture, rape, and killing of political prisoners, and the beatings and killings of dissidents and other civilians. Capital punishment in Iran remains a matter of international concern.
In 2011, the then Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika lifted a state of emergency that had been in place since the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002, as a result of the Arab Spring protests that had occurred throughout the Arab world.
The 2006 Ontario terrorism case is the plotting of a series of attacks against targets in Southern Ontario, Canada, and the June 2, 2006 counter-terrorism raids in and around the Greater Toronto Area that resulted in the arrest of 14 adults and 4 youths . These individuals have been characterized as having been inspired by al-Qaeda.
The Wood Green ricin plot was an alleged bioterrorism plot to attack the London Underground with ricin poison. The Metropolitan Police Service arrested six suspects on 5 January 2003, with one more arrested two days later.
Adel Mohammed Abdel Magid Abdel Bari is an Egyptian terrorist.
Abdelkader Belliraj is a Moroccan-Belgian citizen who was found guilty in 2009 of arms smuggling and planning terrorist attacks in Morocco.
Slimane Khalfaoui was a French-Algerian terrorist convicted of the Strasbourg Cathedral bombing plot in 2004 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was married to a French-Muslim woman during his arrest.
Mohamed Bensakhria is an Algerian citizen, sentenced in France to 10 years in prison for his role in the 2000 Strasbourg Cathedral bombing plot on December 16, 2004. He is suspected of having had close links to Osama bin Laden.
The Toulouse and Montauban shootings were a series of Islamist terrorist attacks committed by Mohammed Merah in March 2012 in the cities of Montauban and Toulouse in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France. He targeted French Army soldiers as well as children and teachers at a Jewish school. In total, seven people were killed and five more wounded.
The Brussels ISIL terror cell were a group accused of involvement in large-scale terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in early 2016, as well as other attacks against European targets. The terror cell is connected to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a jihadist terrorist organisation primarily based in Syria and Iraq.
From March to May 1998, a terror plot against the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France was uncovered by European law enforcement agencies. More than 100 people were arrested in seven countries as a result of the plot, although only some of them were tried or convicted. Organised by the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and backed by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the plot is thought to have targeted the England–Tunisia match on 15 June 1998, and involved infiltrating the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille in order to attack players and spectators during the game, attack the hotel in Paris hosting the United States national team, and finally hijacking an aircraft and crashing it into the Civaux Nuclear Power Plant near Poitiers.
The "Cannes-Torcy cell" was a jihadist network in France uncovered in 2012. Eighteen members of the cell were sentenced from one to 28 years in prison in 2017.