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Europe

Islamist gunman behind failed 2015 Thalys train attack jailed for life by French court

2020-12-18

[RT] An Islamist Death Eater who opened fire on a train bound for La Belle France during a thwarted terrorist attack in 2015 has been given a life sentence by a French court.

Since they don’t do death sentences over there, “life”, which as I recall is actually around a quarter century, is the next best thing. After all, had he succeeded, there were 150 passengers on the train he could have killed.

The attacker was jumped by three Americans who helped foil his raid.

Moroccan citizen Ayoub El-Khazzani,

...the Moroccan ISIS man who originally claimed he was just a homeless guy who’d found the guns, including a Kalashnikov, under a bush in a park. Queerly enough, he had residency papers from Spain dated 2007, where he was known for making fiery speeches in the local mosque. He ran out for a quick Syrian visit before returning for the events in question...

31, was convicted of attempted murder with the intent to commit terrorism after he fired gunshots on the high-speed Thalys service as it crossed the La Belle France-Belgium border, heading for Gay Paree, on August 21, 2015.

Three other men were handed sentences of between seven and 27 years for helping El-Khazzani plot his attack, which involved him boarding the train while heavily armed and wounding two passengers, before he was overpowered by three US servicemen and some other passengers.

After foiling the attack, the American trio — Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler

...a Zoomie, a Doggy, and some guy they knew...

— later starred as themselves in a Clint Eastwood-directed movie, ’The 15:17 to Gay Paree’.

In his testimony, El-Khazzani said he had been ordered to carry out the attack by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian terrorist of Moroccan origin who allegedly plotted the Gay Paree massacres of November 2015 which killed 130 people.

Mr Abaaoud fought for IS in Syria, then was promoted to criminal mastermind of a large Francophone network in Europe which committed a series of attacks in France and Belgium in 2015-16, even after he was killed in shootout with French police following the November 13, 2015 Paris massacre. In addition to the November Paris attack, his projects included the Vervier, Belgium cell plot foiled in January, 2015, Ayoub El-Khazzani’s attempted August Thalys train attack, and the March 22, 2016 attack on Zaventem airport in Brussels that had over 200 casualties.

El-Khazzani was with Abaaoud in Syria and traveled with him back to Brussels. The judge called him "a puppet" controlled by Abaaoud, who was killed by French special forces after the Gay Paree attacks.

During his trial, El-Khazzani told the court that his victims were to have included Americans and members of the European Commission.

Thursday’s ruling comes a day after 14 people were found guilty of being accomplices to the button men behind the Gay Paree attacks that killed 17 people in January 2015.

The defendants were found to have provided financial and logistical support to a trio of attackers who murdered 12 people in the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo
...

A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
, plus a policewoman and four other people at a Jewish supermarket.

The Times of Israel points out:

Unlike Khazzani, who was immediately apprehended, all the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo assault were killed in the aftermath of the massacres, leaving only their accomplices to go on trial.

Posted by:Fred

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