(Radio France) The repentant jihadist mentor Farid Benyettou, who radicalised the men behind the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, has asked the families of the victims for “forgiveness” while appearing in court Saturday to testify in connection with the attacks.
“I would like to go back, to make things right, but it is not possible. … Know that I am really sorry,” he said as he testified at the trial of 14 suspected accomplices of the Charlie Hebdo attack as well as a subsequent attack on a Paris Jewish supermarket.
Benyettou spent four years in prison for running a cell called the Buttes-Chaumont network, which was dismantled in 2005. It sent a dozen youths to join al-Qaeda in Iraq. He has now publicly renounced extremism and works as a truck driver.
