Algerian Terrorism Convict Links Gunmen

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A6 | Tuesday, January 13, 2015
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
TERROR ATTACK IN PARIS
Algerian Terrorism Convict Links Gunmen
Magistrates Believe Early Interaction in Prison Set Suspects in Last Week’s Paris Shootings on Road to Radicalization
Maxppp/Zuma Press
BY DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS
AND STACY MEICHTRY
Djamel Beghal in a file photo from 2007. He was released in 2009 and placed under ‘judicial surveillance.’
PARIS—An al Qaeda recruiter
convicted of involvement in a
2001 plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in France has emerged as a
link connecting the gunmen behind the spree of violence that
traumatized France last week.
Years before they launched
their attacks on a magazine and a
kosher supermarket in Paris,
Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly were spotted by security
services playing soccer and trekking with the Algerian ex-convict,
Djamel Beghal, in central France.
French magistrates say the
men didn’t limit themselves to
sports. Under Mr. Beghal’s supervision, the magistrates say, they
hatched a brazen plan to help another Algerian militant convicted
of planting a bomb in the Paris
subway in 1995 escape from
prison.
Their alleged plan failed—all
three were detained in May 2010.
But magistrates believe the early
interaction with Mr. Beghal set
Messrs. Kouachi and Coulibaly on
the road to radicalization.
Despite legal provisions intended to keep inmates convicted
of terrorism isolated, the two had
contact with Mr. Beghal in 2005
while they were all in the same
sprawling prison, according to
court documents reviewed by The
Wall Street Journal that were corroborated by magistrates.
The case shows how—even
when French authorities tried to
isolate dangerous terrorists from
other inmates—the system was
porous enough to allow recruitment to occur.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls
pledged to make changes. “We
must systematically isolate radical
Islamist inmates,” Mr. Valls told
French radio.
The court documents—including transcripts of police interrogations, surveillance reports and
other investigative material—
were compiled for a trial in 2013
on the escape plot in which Mr.
Beghal got most of the media attention, while his alleged accomplices garnered little notice.
Mr. Beghal, who is serving a 10year prison sentence in connection with that case, denies playing
any role in last week’s shooting
spree, his lawyer said by email.
Mr. Kouachi and his elder
brother Said, as well as Mr. Coulibaly, were killed by police in two,
nearly simultaneous raids Friday.
Together, the three men allegedly
killed 17 people.
An official at the Justice Ministry said that the three were in the
same prison for 160 days, but that
“Mr. Beghal was kept in isolation
and couldn’t have physically
crossed paths with Messrs.
Kouachi and Coulibaly.”
“It’s possible they spoke
through a window,” the official
said.
In practice, the court documents say they managed to establish contact through intermediaries, despite being held in separate
parts of the Fleury-Mérogis prison
south of Paris.
It wasn’t clear from the documents how contact was established or who initiated it. Mr. Beghal’s lawyer couldn’t be reached
after business hours to elaborate.
Mr. Beghal was serving time
for the embassy plot. Mr. Coulibaly was being detained for armed
robbery, according to the documents. Mr. Kouachi was jailed at
the time on suspicion he planned
to travel to Iraq to fight U.S.
troops there.
In 2009, Mr. Beghal was released from prison and placed under “judicial surveillance,” confined to the village of Murat.
His phone communications
were also being monitored, according to the documents, which
describe what officials say ensued:
In late 2009, Mr. Beghal contacted Mr. Coulibaly, who had
been released from prison that
year. Mr. Coulibaly and Chérif
Kouachi began making regular visits to Mr. Beghal, bringing him
supplies and money.
Mr. Beghal’s plan was to tap
Mr. Coulibaly’s experience in
armed heists to break Smaïn Aït
Ali Belkacem, the convict in the
Paris subway attack, out of prison.
Mr. Beghal would join Mr.
Belkacem in fleeing France.
Questioned by investigators
about the prison break plan, Mr.
Belkacem acknowledged seeking
to escape but denied planning
new attacks, saying he was done
with violence.
For months, Mr. Beghal allegedly discussed the operation to
free Mr. Belkacem in code with his
associates, according to the magistrates. The court documents
provide more detail:
“Books” were arms, and “marriage” referred to a terrorist attack the group planned to carry
out once Mr. Belkacem was free.
“Bird” was code for the use of a
helicopter. In a phone conversation monitored by authorities, Mr.
Beghal told Mr. Belkacem how he
had been considering the plot “for
very long time.”
“I’m building it stone by
stone,” he added.
In May 2010, authorities detained Messrs Beghal, Kouachi
and Coulibaly, as well as other
suspects, fearing the group was
about to put the plan in motion.
In Mr. Kouachi’s computer, police found documents describing
suicide attacks; a search of Mr.
Coulibaly’s apartment revealed
AK-47 ammunition, a magistrate
familiar with the probe said.
Mr. Kouachi was released in
October 2010 because investigators lacked evidence to keep him.
Authorities continued to track his
activities for another three years
but stopped in 2013 because he
didn’t raise suspicion.
In 2013, a French court sentenced Mr. Coulibaly to five years,
but he was released last year for
time served.
Some of the hundreds of people gathered Monday at the kosher grocery store in eastern Paris
where four Jews died Friday in a
bloody siege were asking if France
is still a safe place to live and
raise their families.
By Ruth Bender
in Paris and
Nicholas Casey in Tel Aviv
“I feel like packing my bags
and leaving,” said 48-year-old Delphine Sultan, breaking into tears
behind the barriers that held back
the crowds during a visit to the
site by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “And yet I love
France and I would miss it terribly.”
Ms. Sultan and her sister, Laurence Sebag, 46, both Jews of Algerian origin, grew up in the
neighborhood. Now they are considering emigrating to Israel, as
their parents and some of their
children have already done.
“I have always felt French, but
today I am beginning to think that
the future of French Jews is at
risk,” Ms. Sebag said.
The women represent a deep
insecurity in France’s Jewish community that has been accentuated
by Friday’s killings.
The store attack was the deadliest in France’s Jewish community since a gunman killed three
children and a rabbi at a Jewish
school in Toulouse in 2012.
France’s Jewish population, the
largest in Europe, has suffered
other bouts of anti-Semitic vio-
lence, including an attack on a
Jewish couple in the suburb of
Creteil in December, as well as
regular anti-Semitic vandalizing
of synagogues.
When Mr. Netanyahu arrived at
the scene with an hour delay, the
mainly Jewish crowd fell into applause and sang the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, and Hebrew songs before breaking into
the Marseillaise, France’s national
anthem.
The prime minister spent
around 10 minutes among the
crowds and the numerous flowers
and candles placed to honor the
victims.
“It’s not normal in a republic
like ours to need police to protect
our schools and have to tell our
children not to wear their yarmulke in the street,” Lydia Layani,
62, shouted as people lingered in
heated discussions after Mr. Netanyahu’s visit. “I don’t want to
leave France, but I feel sick to my
stomach.”
After marching in Paris on
Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said, “I
wish to tell all French and European Jews: Israel is your home.”
That invitation has had particular resonance in France. It sent
more Jews to Israel than did any
other country last year—a record
7,000, up from about 3,400 the
year before, according to the Jewish Agency, which oversees Israel’s ties with Jewish diaspora.
By comparison, U.S. Jews accounted for about 3,500 of last
year’s arrivals, and Ukraine, beset
by armed conflict, for about 5,800.
Zuma Press
In Shaken District, Jews Worry if France Can Still Be Home
A man mourns on Monday at the scene of last week’s deadly attack on a kosher market in eastern Paris.
Before the terrorist attack, the
organization was forecasting that
as many as 10,000 French Jews
would move to Israel in 2015,
based on inquiries and open applications.
The Jewish Agency promotes
what is known to Israelis as “Aliyah”—Hebrew for “going up”—
under a law that allows anyone
who can show Jewish ancestry to
immigrate to Israel with an expedited visa process, Hebrew language training, housing assistance
and often a paid one-way flight.
Aliyah is Israel’s main route for
immigration.
Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for
the Jewish Agency, said that while
France’s lackluster economy is a
factor, a main driving force for recent immigration is the anti-Semitism that Jews experience in
France.
“There is a growing feeling of
insecurity and intolerance—and
it’s not just these recent attacks.
There are day-to-day attacks on
the streets that do not make the
headlines,” he said. “All of this is
presenting Israel as a good positive alternative.”
Since the attacks, France has
redoubled precautions to protect
its Jews, dispatching thousands of
police to protect synagogues and
Jewish schools. But the security is
unlikely to relieve tensions between Jews and France’s growing
Muslim population, where extremists have emerged to attack
Jews. In March 2012, a French
Muslim of Algerian descent attacked French soldiers and Jewish
civilians, killing eight and vowing
revenge on behalf of Palestinians.
The threat of such attacks led
21-year-old photography student
Sharon Oiknine to leave France
last year for Bat Yam, a coastal
town in Israel just south of Tel
Police Hunt for Accomplices as Security Ramps Up
Nearly four million people took
to the streets on Sunday to show
solidarity with the victims and
protest the violence alongside
President François Hollande, including Israeli Premier Benjamin
Netanyahu, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas and dozens of
other leaders.
The U.S. was represented by its
Ambassador to France Jane Hartley, prompting criticism that Mr.
Obama or Vice President Joe Biden should have gone.
“I think it’s fair to say that we
should have sent someone with a
higher profile,” White House
spokesman Josh Earnest said on
Monday. “I think the president
himself would have liked to have
the opportunity to be there.”
On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu visited the kosher supermarket in
eastern Paris where Mr. Coulibaly
is suspected of killing four hostages in a violent siege on Friday.
“There is a direct line leading
between the attacks of extremist
Islam around the world and the
attack that happened here,” Mr.
Netanyahu said at the grocery, according to his office.
The French government said it
was looking at measures to
thwart terror attacks that would
go beyond a law that took effect
Jan. 1, which gives the government more leeway to collect realtime data about individuals’ mobile phone and Internet traffic
“The status quo, doing nothing, would be absurd,” Mr. Valls
said.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 4,700 police officers
and gendarmes will protect possible targets of anti-Semitic attacks. Up to 10,000 soldiers are
also being deployed around
France and are available to help
secure Jewish schools and synagogues.
The French government also is
tightening security at mosques, as
some groups warned of a rise in
violence against Muslim targets.
The increased security was
highly visible in Sarcelles, a suburb north of Paris that is home to
over 10,000 Jews including Yohan
Cohen, one of the victims of the
supermarket attack.
Two heavily armed police
guards patrolled in front of the
Grand Synagogue de Sarcelles,
while four vans filled with more
police were parked nearby. Another van with guards was parked
near the Les Flanades mall, which
is home to many Jewish businesses.
“We need the police, but their
presence makes me even more
worried. Anytime there are police
on the streets like this, it means
that something’s wrong,” said
Laurent Berros, the rabbi at the
grand synagogue. “We are under
constant threat.”
South of Paris, police guarded
the Yaguel Yaacov school, located
just a couple blocks from where
the policewoman, Clarissa JeanPhilippe, was killed on Thursday.
Private security guards checked
the identification of people as
they approached the building.
“We are determined to ensure
the protection of all the schools
and places of worship in Paris
and in France so that Jewish children keep going to school in complete security in the long term,”
Mr. Cazeneuve, the interior minister, said during a visit to the
school Monday morning.
The nursery and elementary
school has 230 children enrolled,
but many were absent on Monday, said school director Catherine Hacoun.
“Even if we know that the government is doing everything they
can to protect us, we are very
worried and the children are traumatized,” she said.
The Yaguel Yaacov school was
founded in 1991 by Rabbi Jacob
Mergui and his son Joël, president of the Israelite Central Consistory of France, a leading Jewish organization.
Anti-riot police officers wearing bulletproof vests were also
guarding two nearby Jewish restaurants, two kosher grocery
stores, a synagogue and another,
smaller school, a few blocks away.
“We feel a bit safer with the
police here,” said Dana Tordjman,
the mother of an 18-month-old
girl who attends the Jewish nursery school. “But we should be living in a country where they are
not needed.”
—Inti Landauro, Joe Parkinson,
and Carol E. Lee
contributed to this article.
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Continued from Page One
the matter. They found a stock of
rifles and tear-gas grenades, as
well as identity documents in Mr.
Coulibaly’s name, he said.
Given the amount of ammunition they found in the house, the
police suspect that Mr. Coulibaly
had significant financial support.
Meanwhile, Turkish officials
released grainy, closed-circuit
television footage taken at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport showing that Mr. Coulibaly’s girlfriend,
Hayat Boumeddiene, didn’t travel
alone when she left France earlier
this month.
Turkish officials say a man
they identified as Mehdi Sabri
Belhouchine arrived in Istanbul
on Jan. 2 on the same flight as
Ms. Boumeddiene and entered
Syria with her a few days later.
Turkish officials sent the video
to French counterparts after authorities in France requested information on Ms. Boumeddiene,
said a French official.
French prosecutors have described Ms. Boumeddiene as a
dangerous individual who has
trained to use firearms.
Aviv. After switching from a Jewish school to a government-run
French academy, she said, she was
mocked for being Jewish and
came to fear attacks from people
of Arab origin, and came to “feel
France was no longer my home.”
Ms. Oiknine returned to France
for a visit six months ago. “When
I was there, I felt like things were
getting worse,” she said.
Yet overtly pitching Israel to
French Jews can cause controversy. In 2004, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon angered France
when he began meeting French
immigrants on the airport tarmac
in Tel Aviv. “France was furious.
They said ‘this is not done,’ ” said
Alon Liel, a former director general at the Israeli foreign ministry.
Despite his subtler pitch, Mr.
Netanyahu faces criticism at home
over his stance on France. Tzipi
Livni, who is running against him
in tight elections set for March 17,
said on Sunday that Jews should
come to Israel because of Zionist
ideology, “not because it is a safe
haven.” She said asking Jews to
leave France won’t improve safety
for European Jewry.
The view was echoed by Boaz
Ganor, director of the CounterTerrorism Institute at IDC Herzliya, an Israeli college. “The terrorists are trying to spread fear
and anxiety,” he said. “From their
perspective, the decision of Jews
to flee from their countries might
be seen as a success.”
—Joshua Mitnick
and Nancy Shekter-Porat
contributed to this article.
French Regulator
Probes Media on
Assault Coverage
PARIS—A French regulator is
probing potential “mistakes” in
media coverage of the terror
spree last week, after members
of the government complained
that round-the-clock coverage
may have compromised elements of their investigations.
France’s audiovisual watchdog said on Monday it invited
television and radio outlets that
covered the terror attacks and
subsequent commando raids
near Paris last week to discuss
the “questions and difficulties”
raised by their coverage. A
spokeswoman for the regulator
declined to say what specific episodes were under investigation.
The new warning and invitation from France’s TV regulator
is the latest demonstration of
how officials are worried that
an ever-accelerating media landscape is eroding their edge
against terrorists and other
law-enforcement targets.
—Sam Schechner
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