Here is a good article describing what happens to terrorists caught in France.
Captured terror suspects face tough time in France
By Mark Houser
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, May 29, 2005
pittsburghlive.com
When a French court this spring convicted Djamel Beghal of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris, his lawyer denounced the verdict in the strongest terms.
As attorney Jean-Alain Michel put it, the decision was France's "judicial Guantanamo."
In other words, it was the sort of thing one would expect the Americans to do.
Although the French often criticize the Bush administration's "War on Terror," they don't always quibble with the results.
Guantanamo Bay is a good example. Seven French detainees formerly held at the U.S. base have been handed over to France. Six went straight to French jails, where they await trial on terrorism charges.
Contrary to some American assumptions, the French are not soft on terrorism, said Evan Kohlmann, author of "Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe" and an expert witness in recent U.S. terrorism trials.
"I would say that if I was a terrorist suspect, that is the system I would least like to be held under," Kohlmann said. "You have much more civil rights in this country as an accused terrorist than you could ever hope to have in France."
Two hallmarks of the U.S. judicial system -- the right to have one's lawyer present during questioning and the right to a speedy trial -- do not apply in France. A French citizen or legal resident suspected of links to terrorism can be interrogated for up to four days without an attorney and be imprisoned for four years before going to trial.
French courts also admit evidence that other European countries would find too controversial.
Beghal, for instance, recanted his confession in the embassy bomb plot, claiming guards at a jail in the United Arab Emirates tortured it out of him before he was extradited. But it was still used at the trial.
Sentencing in France, however, is more lenient than in the United States. Those convicted of plotting terrorist acts in France usually serve 10 years or less in prison. Beghal got 10 years.
The public supports the system's broad investigative powers, said Olivier Roy, a French scholar and author researching the radical Muslim movement in Europe.
"It's an issue among human-rights activists, defense lawyers and some intellectuals, but it's not an issue in public opinion. We are used to having strong police and a not-very-independent legal system. It's part of the tradition of a strong state," Roy said.
All terrorism cases are overseen by a small number of Paris-based investigative judges who handle no other kind of case. Their role is solely building cases, which then are handed over to independent judges for trial. Investigative judges can order surveillance and arrests, and they often are assisted by French intelligence, which has a special section for the judiciary.
Jean-Francois Ricard has been a terrorism judge for a decade. He said four-day interrogations are essential to sorting out relationships in complex networks.
"You shouldn't see it only in terms of aggressiveness. You should also see it from the vantage point that this is a system that has allowed for many people not to be indicted," Ricard said.
Of the 80 people arrested and questioned last year for suspected links to Islamic terror groups, 35 are still in prison facing trial, he said. The remainder were released.
Overall, Ricard said, about 300 people are in French prisons serving sentences for terrorist crimes or are awaiting trial.
Contrast that with the United States where, in the three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, federal prosecutors charged 123 people with planning a terrorist crime or aiding a terrorist organization, according to a study by Robert Chesney, a law professor at Wake Forest University who analyzes federal terrorism cases. Most are in prison facing trial or serving a sentence. Hundreds more captured in operations abroad are in military or CIA detention.
Nothing new
France has long had experience with terrorism, tied to its colonial history in North Africa.
In the bloody war 50 years ago that led to Algeria's independence, separatists killed French civilians, as well as Algerians seen as collaborators, in bombings and other attacks there. French soldiers responded with mass reprisals, summary executions and torture. Most violence was confined to Algeria, but both separatists and loyalists set off bombs in France.
When Algeria's civil war broke out after a 1992 coup, Paris became a target again.
Laden with dynamite, hijackers seized an Air France plane in 1994 in Algeria and planned to crash it into the Eiffel Tower. They were killed when commandos stormed the plane during a refueling stop in Marseilles.
The next summer, three bombs in Paris' subway killed eight people and injured 200. The attack was traced to a militant Algerian group.
French police fatally shot one suspect months later, and two more were sentenced to life in prison. A fourth, Rachid Ramda, is in a British prison, where he has resisted extradition for nearly a decade by claiming France can't give him a fair trial. The case galls the French, who criticize "Londonistan" for being soft on terrorism.
Human rights activists still complain about a 1999 mass trial, held in a prison gymnasium, of 138 people accused of involvement with a group aiding Algerian rebels. Only three men received the maximum eight-year sentences. More than 70 were acquitted or had their cases thrown out.
The criminal charge of "participation in a terrorist enterprise" carries a 10-year maximum prison term, although a recent change in the law doubles the sentence for the leader of a group.
Contrast that with a federal case last month in Virginia, where Islamic scholar Ali al-Timimi faces life in prison for encouraging followers to go to Afghanistan and fight U.S. soldiers.
In January, France cut short one convicted terrorist's eight-year prison sentence as a reward for good behavior. Fateh Kamel, convicted in Paris in 2001 of heading a cell whose members included failed "millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressam, has since returned to Canada.
"Ours is a system that is certainly not very severe in terms of sentences," Ricard said.
The focus, instead, is on breaking up plots before they develop, he said.
Louis Caprioli, recently retired head of the French intelligence service's counterterror branch, said the new networks of jihadists are getting better at avoiding detection.
"These people have learned techniques to build explosives, but they have also learned to respect the rules of security. How to avoid getting trailed, how to use telephones, to change their residence often, to change the (memory) cards of their telephones or even throw the phones away -- sometimes one every day -- to avoid getting trailed," Caprioli said.
To counter that, French intelligence relies on a network of informants, some of whom have been to militant training camps overseas, he said.
France strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But authorities there have moved to break up recruiting rings sending jihadists to Baghdad to join the insurgency.
It's not only good diplomacy, Caprioli said.
"Some might escape death and come back to France or Europe strengthened in experience and prestige," he said. "These are the people who can build up terrorist networks here." |
