The Paris Criminal Court renders its decision on Friday, June 17 concerning the Algerian Saber Lahmar, detained in Guantanamo then cleared, tried in France for having incited several people to leave for Iraq or Syria in the mid-2010s.
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After four days of hearing for “terrorist conspiracy“, the anti-terrorism prosecutor had requested in May against this 53-year-old man the maximum sentence of ten years in prison, accompanied by a two-thirds security period and a “permanent ban from the national territory“. Called by many devotees “the sheikh“, having studied Islam in Medina (Saudi Arabia), Saber Lahmar, imam in the first half of the 2010s in the Bordeaux region, had according to the magistrate “used his knowledge to promote» departures.
Seven have been attributed to him, by the courts as well as by relatives of the starters: Othman Yekhlef is considered to be “dead on areasince the end of 2015, while Salim Machou, who left with his wife and four young children, was sentenced to death in 2019 by the Iraqi courts for his membership in the Islamic State group.
“Absence of material elements”
Saber Lahmar had been tortured during his eight years in detention in the military prison of Guantanamo, the American naval base in Cuba, from which he emerged cleared by American justice before being welcomed by France at the end of 2009. During During the hearing, the defendant repeatedly contested the charges.
Regarding Mohamed H., a 45-year-old Frenchman designated by the courts as his “second“, the prosecutor had requested six years of imprisonment with a warrant of deferred committal: he was not, according to her, the “blind witnessof these departures but theknewand favored them. The defense had in return insisted on “the absence of material elements” in this investigation started in July 2016, and requested the release of Saber Lahmar as of Mohamed H.
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“If Othman Yekhlef and Salim Machou went to the site, it is perhaps quite simply that they wanted to, without the need to look for a culprit other than themselves.“, had thundered Me Christian Blazy, lawyer for Saber Lahmar. “Doesn’t that even cross your mind?” Me Noémie Saidi-Cottier, lawyer for Mohamed H., had also attacked a file of “guesses” and D'”hypotheses“.