The special assize court sentenced the Franco-Moroccan Chaïb Attaf to 17 years' imprisonment on Friday March 10 for having joined the jihadist group Islamic State in Libya in 2016. The court accompanied his sentence with a security measure for both third party and ordered socio-judicial follow-up for five years after his release from prison.
The 42-year-old accused, from Auxerre and based in Louvroil near Maubeuge (North), had been on trial since Monday for criminal association of terrorist criminals (AMT) for several attempts to join a recruitment network and areas held by the IS between 2013 and 2017.
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His partner Dounia Bentefrit, 41, under judicial supervision since June 2022, also appeared for AMT.
The court sentenced her to five years in prison, two of which were suspended and the obligation of socio-judicial follow-up for 8 years, as well as the continuation of the system for taking charge of radicalization in an open environment (PAIRS program individualized support and social reaffiliation).
"
The court did not want a reincarceration to jeopardize the reintegration process that you have undertaken
" and the decision is "
above all in the interest of your children
", she indicated at the time of the verdict.
“Keyboard Jihadist”
Chaïb Attaf, nicknamed "
the keyboard jihadist
" in his entourage, had long joined the jihadist movement and matured his rallying to the self-proclaimed caliphate of IS and the possibility of dying there as a martyr.
Deported for the first time from Syria in 2014, he fell back to Libya where the terrorist movement intends to extend its territory and holds until December 2016 the port city of Sirte (North) and a large part of the east coast.
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On the spot, the "
Islamic El Dorado
" that he says he idealized turns to "
hell
", in his words.
His companion and their two young children will remain clandestinely cloistered for months in unsanitary places, tossed around in particular between Derna and Sebha, in the north-west of the country at war.
Tells him that he was treated like "
cannon fodder
" by a routed IS group, his battalion decimated by a bombardment.
He will be arrested in May 2017 like the rest of the family and all will spend two years in Libyan jails before being deported in April 2019 to Egypt and the following month to France.
Chaïb Attaf assured during the trial that he had not fought, saying he was disappointed by the IS group but still faithful to the idea of an "
Islamic State
".
The two accused were also sentenced for evading their legal obligations vis-à-vis their children.
The Advocate General had requested a sentence of 18 years' imprisonment against Chaïb Attaf, accompanied by a two-thirds security sentence, and 8 years' imprisonment against his companion.