Morocco Jails Brother of Presumed Paris Attacks Ringleader
A Moroccan court has sentenced the younger brother of suspected Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud to two years in prison on charges including justifying terrorism, state media reported.
According to his lawyer, Yassine Abaaoud was unaware of the activities of his brother, who was killed in a French police raid just days after the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people in Paris.
Moroccan intelligence helped put French investigators on the trail of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin who had appeared in grisly Islamic State group videos and was linked to a series of plots in Europe.
Five other defendants were sentenced to between two and five years in prison on separate terrorism related cases by the same court in Rabat's twin city Sale on Thursday, the MAP state news agency reported.
Morocco, on guard against deadly attacks like those seen in Tunisia, says it has broken up 152 "terrorist cells" since 2002, including 31 with ties to jihadists in Iraq and Syria since 2013.
"Presumed" and "suspected" are terrorist terms, therefore. In media parlance, being linked to terrorism is already terrorism. Members of Parliaments and senior judiciary are currently investigating ways to discuss terror laws without becoming linked to terrorism themselves. Their consensus view is not to discuss it.