Rachid Ramda
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Rachid Ramda (born 1970, also known as "Abou Farès") is suspected of financing the 1995 terror bombings in French public transportation systems.
In 1993, Ramda was sentenced to the death penalty in Algeria in absentia for a terrorist attack at the airport of Algiers, which had killed 9 and wounded 123.
By 1995, Ramda had already been granted refugee status. After the 1995 terror bombings in Paris, extradition requests were sent to the United Kingdom, where he fought extradition until 2005. The refusal of British authorities to extradite Ramda was one point of contention between France and the UK, with many in France and elsewhere alleging that the British government was deliberately lenient to Islamist terrorists operating outside of the UK in order to buy peace in the UK. (See Londonistan.) In fact, British ministers have repeatedly tried to extradite Ramda, but have had their decisions overturned by the British High Court.
Supporters of Ramda characterise him as an asylum seeker held for ten years in UK prisons without charge or trial, claiming that this is a clear case of denial of justice. Detractors note that in the legal sense, Ramda's stay in various UK prisons is entirely voluntary, as he could at any point give up fighting extradition and stand trial in France. However, fears of alleged mistreatment of Muslims in the French justice system were one of the main points of legal objection to his deportation.
After all recourse procedures were depleted, Ramda was eventually given into French custody on the 1 December 2005. Transferred to the Palais de Justice of Paris, he was formally informed of four warrants launched against him by the French justice: one for criminal association with a terrorist organisation (specifically for providing funding to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, or GIA), and three in relation to three terrorist attacks in Paris in 1995. The former, being a "délit", i.e. a crime of intermediate seriousness, would be tried in the Tribunal Correctionnel; and the latter three, considered felonies (that is, carrying a possible sentence of more than 10 years) in the Cour d'assises.
On 29 March, Ramda was sentenced to ten years in prison by the correctional court, the maximum possible sentence for plotting the attacks. He is still to be trialed before the Criminal court, where he risks life imprisonment.
Ramda has been seen as one of the masterminds of the Algerian radical islamist movement, and one of the main personalities of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group. However, others point out his age at arrest (25) and alleged links with other more senior Islamic fundamentalists as indications that he might be a lower functionary.
[edit] References
- ↑ "The Non-trial", The Economist, October 20, 2005.
- ↑ "The extradition of Ramda examined on October 14", Le Nouvel Observateur, September 26, 2005.
