Former Taliban recruiter sentenced to 7 years in prison

Algiers’ court Wednesday sentenced to 7 years imprisonment an Algeria telecommunication engineer found guilty of operating within terrorist organizations based in Afghanistan.

• He was delivered by the Libyan authorities in 2007 after four months of detention on its soil.
• The defendant denied all relationships with these organizations, explaining his various travels abroad since 2006 by the fact that he was following trainings for the benefit of the company he was working in.
• But the judge gave counter arguments through the enumeration of a series events going back to 2001 when the convict dwelled for a while in Syria alongside an Algerian friend. During this period, both of them were meeting with other Algerians who were eliminated by US forces in Afghanistan after 9/11 attacks.
• In previous revelations to the security forces, the revealed that a man who goes by the name of “Abu Al Walid” provided them passports with which they crossed the Turkish borders than joined Afghanistan through the Iranian territory.
• He went on his revelations saying that he was in charge of recruiting young Libyans and trained them in the “salafit Group” strongholds here in Algeria in a move to topple the Libyan regime.