The Algerian Saber Lahmar, detained for eight years in Guantanamo before being cleared and then welcomed in France in 2009, will be tried in mid-May in Paris for having incited and prepared the departure of aspirants to jihad in Iraq or Syria, AFP learned on Tuesday March 8 from a source familiar with the matter.
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Two anti-terrorism judges dismissed him on February 17 for criminal "
terrorist criminal association
", according to an order consulted by AFP.
The trial will be held from May 10 to 13 in Paris, according to a judicial source.
This 53-year-old man, born in Algeria, is presented by justice as a former member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) who then passed through Saudi Arabia and Bosnia.
Suspected of having fomented an attack against the American embassy in Sarajevo, he was imprisoned at the beginning of 2002 in the American camp of Guantanamo, on the island of Cuba.
“Anchoring in radical Islam”
Cleared of all suspicion in 2008 by an American federal judge, he was released at the end of 2009 by the United States and then transferred to France where he had settled near Bordeaux, officiating as an imam in a mosque in Gironde and a prayer room. clandestine.
Saber Lahmar is criticized for his "
rooting in radical Islam
", which he contests, with "
very violent remarks
" during sermons "
attacking the Jews, calling for the killing of apostates and for martyrdom
".
He is suspected of having maintained links with several figures of jihadism in France.
Saber Lahmar is also implicated for having "
directly encouraged and prepared the departures
" in the summer of 2015 "
towards the Iraqi-Syrian zone
" of a man, Othman Yekhlef, considered "
dead in the area
" since the end of 2015, as well than a couple and their four children.
The father, Salim Machou, is one of seven French people sentenced to death in 2019 by Iraqi justice for their membership in the Islamic State group.
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Justice also wonders if, for having worked for these departures, Saber Lahmar was not "
paid
" 35,000 euros by the Sanabil association, dissolved at the end of 2016 by the French authorities who placed it in the jihadist nebula.
Lawyers for Saber Lahmar, indicted and imprisoned in June 2017, did not respond to AFP.
A trial is also ordered for the one whom justice considers to be his "
second
", Mohamed H., born in Morocco in 1977. This one "
firmly disputes the charges brought against him
", according to his lawyer, Me Noémie Saidi-Cottier.
