France to try ‘Afghan network’ suspects

PARIS, Jan 14 (AFP) – Seven years after it opened, a French enquiry into an “Afghan network” has made its first legal breakthrough with the decision to try three suspected members of an armed Islamist movement, linked to the al-Qaeda movement.

The three; Mohamed Chaouki Baadache, a 34-year-old Algerian and Frenchmen Ahmed Laidouni, 35, and David Courtailler, a 28-year-old convert to Islam, appeared in a Paris court on Monday charged with “association with criminals in relation to a terrorist organisation”.

The cases of four other suspects are still being examined.

The cases concern the first alleged links between French suspects and the international movement which led to the birth of al-Qaeda.

The enquiry opened in October 1995, after a string of bombings in France by the Algeria-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA).

© AFP

                                Subject: France news