Djamel Beghal (also

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

as Jamel Beghal and Djamel Begal) ( ar, جمال بغال; born December 2nd 1965 in Bordj Bou Arréridj,

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

) is an Algerian terrorist convict.France
" '' Frontline''. ''

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

''. He married Sylvie, a French citizen, in 1990, while working as a youth worker in

Corbeil-Essonnes Corbeil-Essonnes () on the River Seine is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Although neighboring Évry is the official seat of the Arrondissement of Évry, the sub-prefecture building ...

. In 1997, he moved his family to Leicester, where Sylvie still lives with their four children. On 28 July 2001, he was arrested at

Dubai International Airport Dubai International Airport ( ar, مطار دبي الدولي) is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic. It is also the nineteenth-busies ...

while transferring from a flight from

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

to a flight to Europe; he held a fake French passport. Over the next two months, he was interrogated by the Emirati police. CAGE, a London-based Islamic activist organization, claimed that Emirati police tortured Beghal during questioning and accused the British and French governments of 'complicity'. No evidence was offered to substantiate those claims other than the testimony of Beghal himself. Beghal confessed to

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

authorities that he was conspiring to destroy the U.S. embassy in Paris. His confession doomed the plot. After he was extradited to France on 1 October, Beghal retracted his statement, saying that it had been given under torture. In October 2001, Beghal told magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière that he had visited Osama bin Laden's base in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

and planned a suicide bomb attack. In March 2005, French authorities convicted Beghal and five others for planning the attacks, and Beghal began serving his 10-year sentence. During his time in prison, he met and mentored fellow prisoners Chérif Kouachi, one of the two brothers who committed the 2015 ''Charlie Hebdo'' shooting, as well as

Amedy Coulibaly Amedy Coulibaly (; 27 February 1982 – 9 January 2015) was a Malian-French man who was the prime suspect in the Montrouge shooting, in which municipal police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe was shot and killed, and was the hostage-taker and gu ...

, who carried out the Fontenay-aux-Roses shooting and

Porte de Vincennes siege On 9 January 2015, Amedy Coulibaly, armed with a submachine gun, an assault rifle, and two Tokarev pistols, entered and attacked a Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes in Paris, France. There, Coulibaly murdered four Jewish h ...

. Stripped in 2006 of the French citizenship which he had acquired through his marriage, Beghal was released from prison and expelled to Algeria on 16 July 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beghal, Djamel 1965 births Living people People from Bordj Bou Arréridj Algerian emigrants to France Algerian al-Qaeda members French al-Qaeda members People extradited to France People extradited from the United Arab Emirates