FRANCE: A French court jails Algerian Rachid Ramda for life for his role in financing a spate of bomb attacks on the Paris underground rail network

Record ID: 644738

  • Title: FRANCE: A French court jails Algerian Rachid Ramda for life for his role in financing a spate of bomb attacks on the Paris underground rail network
  • Date: 27th October 2007
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (French) A RELATIVE OF ONE OF THE VICTIMS, AMAR NISSER, SAYING: "It's a relief and a victory against terrorism."
  • Embargoed: 11th November 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVA758GUI5KSPATZZIOXMCT92IYK
  • Story Text: A French court jails Algerian Rachid Ramda for life for his role in financing a spate of bomb attacks on the Paris underground rail network that killed eight people and wounded 200 others in 1995.
    The Paris Assizes Court ordered Rachid Ramda serve a minimum 22 years behind bars on Friday (October 26) for his role in the attacks, the worst bombings on mainland France since World War Two.
    Court president Didier Wacogne, sitting with six professional assessors, said Ramda was 'guilty of complicity to murder and attempted murder' as well as an array of explosives and other offences.
    Around 70 relatives of victims of the attacks were present for the verdict which was met in silence.
    "It's a relief and a victory against terrorism," said Amar Nisser, a relative of a victim of the bomb attacks.
    Ramda has 10 days to appeal.
    "It's a decision without surprise. But we think that even if the decision was taken, neither the justice nor the law was expressed. And we will continue to defend Mr Ramda for the appeal because Mr Ramda, very strongly and clearly, continued to protest his innocence," said his lawyer Sebastien Bono.
    Ramda, 38, who denied the charges, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2006 for terrorist conspiracy linked to the same bombing campaign. His lawyers protested he was being tried a second time for the same crime.
    The prosecution said Ramda was a key figure in Algeria's radical Armed Islamic Group (GIA), and said that phone taps showed he was in regular contact with Ali Touchent and Boualem Bensaid, the GIA's coordinators in France.
    A police search of Ramda's London address produced a Western Union payment slip bearing his fingerprints which showed he had sent 5,000 pounds ($10,250) to the Paris bombers.
    The GIA claimed responsibility for bombings that were part of a campaign to punish French support for Algerian authorities that scrapped multi-party elections in 1992 that an Islamic party had been poised to win.
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