A Paris court has sentenced a French-Algerian, Djamel Beghal, to 10 years in jail for plotting to bomb the US embassy in France in 2001. Beghal, 39, was on trial with five other alleged militant Islamists. They got jail terms of one to nine years. Beghal, arrested in Dubai in July 2001, retracted a confession he had made there, alleging it was extracted by torture during weeks of questioning. He had said the bomb plot idea had come from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Beghal was found guilty of "criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise". Co-defendant Kamel Daoudi, a 30-year-old computer expert, received a nine-year jail sentence. Both Beghal and Daoudi allegedly spent time at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in 2001. | Didn't everyyone? |
The prosecution claimed the plot was hatched in Afghanistan with a leading al-Qaeda militant, Abu Zubaydah, captured in March 2002. Beghal denied at the trial ever having met the Saudi-born Palestinian. In his confession, Beghal had allegedly identified a professional footballer, Nizar Trabelsi, as the chosen suicide bomber. Trabelsi is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in Belgium, on other charges. The plot is reported to have included plans to target a US cultural centre in Paris as well as the US embassy. Trabelsi's alleged task was to enter the US embassy, just off the Place de la Concorde, with explosives strapped to his body, and blow himself up. A van packed with explosives would have been driven separately to the US cultural centre, also in the heart of Paris, and detonated. Trabelsi, who denies the claim, is currently in jail in Belgium for planning to bomb a military base on an al-Qaeda mission. Beghal was accused of recruiting members for his network in the southern suburbs of Paris, including his brother-in-law Johann Bonte, who was also on trial. Asked if he regarded himself a radical, Beghal testified: "I am a Muslim and Muslim to the hilt."
