« France: Techniques Of Islamist Recruitment |
| Canada: 17 Suspected Muslim Terrorists Arrested »
June 3, 2006
France: Plans Of A Salafist Islamist Were Unaffected By Jail
We have written on the activities of Safe Bourada, and how in September and October last year several members of a supposed terrorist cell, which he was reforming, were arrested and interrogated. Safe Bourada himself had been summonsed for interrogation, with eight others, in September last year, and he has remained in detention since that time. Yesterday's Le Figaro published an account of how prison failed to keep Bourada away from his terrorist dreams. The following is my translation:
Safe Bourada created a terrorist group behind bars
Convicted for his involvement with bomb attacks in 1995, he has exploited his stay in prison to recruit.
He is well spoken and has a charismatic personality, say those who have met him. He is also one of the most dangerous terrorists of these past years, convicted for bomb blasts in 1995 in Paris. In seven years in prison, Safe Bourada did not idle away his time: he converted to Salafism at least 10 of his fellow inmates, all ready to follow on a new terrorist venture.
Safe Bourada is today incarcerated in a detention facility in Rouen. He had been summoned afresh in September 2005, suspected, this time, of having formed an Islamist group planned to send volunteers to Iraq and of preparing bomb attacks in France. A project which he had put together in the course of his first stay in prison. Bourada, born on the 24 May 1970 at Digoin (Cote-d'Or) had been sentenced in 1998 to ten years' jail for having organised all the logistics of the attacks of 1995.
10 converts
He had spent most of his punishment at the detention center of Val-de-Reuil (Eure). To understand his work, one must travel to a small industrial town, 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Evreux. Amongst the Normandy countryside, Val-de-reuil has the airs of a Parisian suburb. The prison holds 839, and built in 1989, it is the largest in Europe. It was supposed to accommodate "those convicted for one year and more, considered as presenting the best prospects for reintroduction (into society)". In 2005, there are noted three acts qualified as proselytizing, the refusal to follow education delivered by a woman, the non-integration with non-Muslims by the "bearded ones" and the drafting of anti-western poems.
It was here that the detained Bourada ended up at the close of the 1990s. He left there on 8 February 2003 after more than seven years' detention. Meanwhile Safe had convinced 10 of his companions: Kais, the rapist, Samir, the murderer, Stephane, the petty criminal...French or not, Christian or Muslim. He gave them lessons, he converted them bit by bit, always discreetly. He versed them in surahs of the Koran in a rough Arabic. In 2004, once free, he went to Egypt, officially to take up a language course.
In prison, Bourada wrote and created on paper the group Ansar al-Fath (partisans of victory). He also telephoned to re-motivate his former companions from 1995. On his release he met again with his former companions from prison whom he had converted, to pursue with them the terrorist venture under the banner of Ansar al-Fath. He was not given the time (to achieve this).
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 3, 2006 12:58 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)