From petty crime to genocidal violence : a French jihadist’s case.
Mehdi Nemmouche, 29, the French-Algerian jihadist believed to have gunned four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on May 24, was transfered last Tuesday to Belgium, after being held in Paris for almost two months. Nemmouche, who is supposed to have fled to Amsterdam after the massacre, had then travelled by bus had to Marseilles, Southern France, where he had been arrested upon his arrival on May 30. Whether the arrest occured by mere chance or as the result of a coordinated European police investigation is not clear. At any rate, he was found to carry weapons similar to
those used in Brussels.
Ever since his arrest in Marseilles, Nemmouche refused to answer the French judges questions, presumably on the advice of his French-Cameroonese lawyer, Apolin Pepiezep. In a likewise manner, he has declined, so far, to cooperate with the Belgian judges who are now in charge of the case. One reason for such behavior may be the fear of being extradited to a third country, Israel, since two of the victims at the Jewish Museum massacre were Israeli citizens. However, Pepiezep mentioned as well legal technicalities in the investigation, including leaks to the press from police sources, as valid reasons for Nemmouche’s silence.
Born out of wedlock in Roubaix, Northern France, from a mentally disturbed mother of Algerian origin and an unknown father, Mehdi Nemmouche spent his childhood between his Algerian relatives and a French foster family. He engaged in petty thievery at 15, and soon got mired into violence and crime. Convicted on several accounts, he spent five years in jail, from 2007 to 2012. He opted for a militant Islamic lifestyle while in jail, a frequent case among Muslim criminals. Once set free, he traveled to Turkey, Malaysia and Thailand in 2013. It is assumed that he spent one year in Syria with the ISIS militias.
According to the French intelligence and security agencies, several hundred young men with a similar background or profile, and some young women as well, have been trained in Syria over the past two years and have returned to Europe. They are seen as major security risk.
© Michel Gurfinkiel & The Jewish Chronicle, 2014