He has "
always been present where radical Islam has been
", observed a magistrate on condition of anonymity.
From Tuesday, May 10, the Algerian Saber Lahmar appears in Paris on suspicion of radical preaching and incitement to the departure for Iraq or Syria of aspirants to jihad.
Also detained for eight years in Guantanamo, he was cleared and then welcomed to France in 2009.
At his side before the 16th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court will be tried until Friday another defendant, Mohamed H., returned like him for criminal association of terrorist criminals.
Read alsoGuantanamo's youngest detainee released after 20 years in detention
Born in 1969 in Algeria, Saber Lahmar completed a degree in Islamic sciences and then became a member of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
He left for a few years to complete his studies in Saudi Arabia, before appearing in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1996 and 2001, where he worked in particular in a large mosque in Sarajevo considered a gathering place for Islamists.
The Bosnians handed him over to the Americans at the beginning of 2002 with five other Algerians, suspected of having fomented an attack against the United States Embassy.
“Guantanamo will stay with me until the end of my life”
He was then transferred to Guantanamo military prison, where he was held until 2008, before being cleared by American justice.
President Nicolas Sarkozy accepts the principle of welcoming two ex-convicts from the camp to France in December 2009. Saber Lahmar is one of them.
“
Guantanamo will stay with me until the end of my life.
It was not normal torture and it was not eight days
,” he told AFP in 2012.
For the prosecution, the one who seems to act as a "
religious guide
" officiates quickly, from 2010, as imam of the mosque of Saint-André-de-Cubzac (Gironde) but also in a clandestine prayer room located above. above the restaurant of Mohamed H., the other implicated.
Saber Lahmar is criticized for his “
rooting in radical Islam
” with “
very violent remarks
” during sermons “
attacking Jews, calling for the killing of apostates and for martyrdom.
“He is also suspected of having maintained links with several figures of jihadism in France, including Lionel Dumont, a former Islamist robber of the “
Roubaix gang
”.
Read alsoLionel Dumont, jihad veteran and member of the “Roubaix gang”, released from prison
Starting point of the investigation, Saber Lahmar would have "
directly encouraged and prepared departures
" in the summer of 2015 towards the Iraqi-Syrian zone, perhaps against remuneration from the Sanabil association, dissolved at the end of 2016 by the French authorities who considered it to be at the heart of the jihadist nebula.
Among the travellers, Salim Machou, who left for Raqqa, is one of the seven French people sentenced to death in 2019 by Iraqi justice for their membership in Daesh.
An “
empty folder
”
In an interview with France Bleu, his lawyer Me Christian Blazy disputed the charges, denouncing “
an empty file
”.
"
You do not have the elements that show a role on his part in the departure
" of Bordeaux, he continues, while acknowledging that his client frequents "
several people within the Muslim community who could have been radicalized.
»
The one who was indicted and imprisoned in June 2017 and who will appear detained "
is the victim of his reputation as a former Guantanamo detainee but (...) after eight years of detention, he was released without any facts not be legally reproached to him
, ”added the criminal lawyer.
He will therefore be judged alongside the one whom justice considers to be the "
second to Sheikh Lahmar
", Mohamed H. His profile appeared in the press in 2017 when he briefly officiated as an external speaker in English in a college in Côte- d'Or before being dismissed at the announcement of his indictment.
"
My client strongly disputes the charges against him
," his lawyer Me Noémie Saidi-Cottier told AFP.