(AFP) An Algerian preacher who spent eight years in the US-run Guantanamo prison went on trial in France on Tuesday for allegedly encouraging several young men to join the Islamic State group.
Saber Lahmar, a 52-year-old Algerian released by the US in 2008 and taken in afterwards by France, has been charged with encouraging jihadists to head to Iraq and Syria to fight for the extremist group in 2015.
Speaking mostly in Arabic at the start of his trial in Paris on Tuesday, Lahmar denied having links to Islamist groups in France and suggested he was being persecuted because of his religion.
“Today I am being detained because I knew someone who left for Syria,” he said, referring to Salim Machou, a Frenchman who was sentenced to death in an Iraqi court for belonging to Islamic State in 2019.
