Saber Lahmar, an exonerated former Guantanamo detainee and former imam of Bordeaux was sentenced this Friday, June 17 at the Paris Criminal Court to 10 years in prison for terrorist criminal association.
Saber Lahmar receives the maximum sentence, 10 years in prison for terrorist criminal association. The Paris Criminal Court considers that he played “an active role” in the departures to Iraq and Syria. Including the presumed death of a man at the end of 2015.
Between 1996 and 2001, he worked in a large mosque in Sarajevo, presumed to be a gathering place for Islamists. In 2002, when he was delivered to the Americans by the Bosnians, he found himself transferred to the military prison of Guantanamo before being exonerated at the end of 2009 and joined France.
It is in New Aquitaine that he officiates as a religious guide, in a clandestine prayer room located above the restaurant of Mohamed H in Bordeaux. And, he officiated in parallel regularly for Friday prayers in the mosque of Saint-André-de-Cubzac in Gironde.
The Paris Criminal Court held against him sermons and remarks “where he justified the departure to Syria and Iraq” which were collected by recordings and testimonies of his relatives. During the hearing, Saber Lahmar admitted for the first time to having been radicalized before “a real journey of introspection”.
According to the 16th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court, which specializes in terrorism, “no element proved that he had had a role in propaganda or incitement to leave”. Mohamed H who ran the restaurant in Bordeaux above which Saber Lahmar preached clandestinely was released.
“Justice was not content with hypotheses or suppositions and issued a well-founded and well-motivated court decision. My client will be able to resume the course of his life. It’s a relief” said congratulated his lawyer Noémie Saidi-Cottier.
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