(AFP) A jury found Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche guilty Thursday of the “terrorist murders” of four people at Brussels’ Jewish museum, in the first case of a Syria jihad veteran to stage an attack in Europe. Nemmouche, 33, now faces a life sentence […]
(AFP) They grew up in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia and can place Israel on a map, but many young refugees in Sweden have never heard of the Holocaust. Their first contact with Jewish history in Europe is often in the classroom and […]
(AFP) Prominent French jihadist Jean-Michel Clain was killed last month, his wife told AFP Tuesday after fleeing the last redoubt of the Islamic State group in eastern Syria. Clain’s wife Dorothee Maquere said he was killed in mortar shelling after being wounded […]
(AFP) German prosecutors have formally charged a Russian Islamist and acquaintance of Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri with plotting an explosives attack, prosecutors said Tuesday. The suspect, identified as Magomed-Ali C., 31, had planned an attack with Tunisian Amri, who went […]
(AFP) A “radicalised” inmate at a prison in northwest France, who seriously wounded two guards in a knife attack on Tuesday, was shot and injured in a police raid that also left his visiting partner fatally wounded, sources told AFP. Prisoner Michael […]
(AFP) A French court on Friday jailed two Iraqis and one Iranian man for organising illegal migrant boat journeys across the English Channel. The 32-year-old Iraqi, considered the group leader, received an 18-month sentence from the court in Boulogne, on the northern […]
(AFP) Prosecutors have called for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to be tried for tweeting pictures of atrocities committed by the Islamic State group, judicial sources said Friday. This could hike further pressure on Le Pen, 50, who already faces legal […]
(AFP) Lawyers for a Frenchman accused of murdering four people in a terrorist attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels insisted Thursday their client was not the killer, as his trial nears its end. Defence lawyers said Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, was not […]
(AFP) Retailer Decathlon Tuesday cancelled plans to sell a sports version of the hijab Muslim headscarf in France, following an outcry. “We are effectively taking the decision to not sell this product in France for now,” Decathlon official Xavier Rivoire told the […]
(AFP) Halal meat from animals slaughtered by religious ritual without having first been stunned cannot be labelled organic, on animal welfare grounds, a top European Union court ruled Tuesday. The way the meat is slaughtered “fails to observe the highest animal welfare […]
(AFP) Prosecutors on Monday poured scorn on the “indecent” silence of a Frenchman accused of shooting dead four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels as they began their closing summary. French national Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, could face life in prison if […]
(AFP) Iraqi courts will prosecute 13 French citizens captured while fighting for the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, Iraq’s President Barham Saleh said Monday. The fighters, who were turned over to Iraq after being seized by Syrian Kurdish forces, “will be […]
(AFP) A top French Islamic State jihadist who became notorious after voicing an audio recording claiming responsibility for the November 2015 attacks in Paris has been killed in an overnight airstrike, security sources told AFP. Fabien Clain, who is believed to have […]
(AFP) The trial of a Frenchman accused of shooting dead four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium was briefly interrupted on Monday as police were summoned to question a juror. “We cannot start the closing arguments under these conditions,” Judge Laurence […]
(AFP) Detained after fleeing the Islamic State group’s crumbling Syrian holdout, two women from France say they are ready to go home — if they are judged fairly. Behind the fence of a camp in Kurdish-held territory, the detainees wore long black face […]
(AFP) Germany vowed Monday to prosecute German IS fighters but warned that it would be “extremely difficult” to organise the repatriation of European nationals from Syria, after US President Donald Trump called on allies to take back alleged jihadists. Syria’s US-backed Kurdish […]
(AFP) European nations must take back hundreds of Islamic State group fighters captured in Syria, President Donald Trump said late Saturday, after a delay in announcing what he said would be the end of the “caliphate.” Trump shocked allies in December by […]
(AFP) After decades spent in the shadow of a death sentence pronounced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Salman Rushdie is quietly defiant. “I don’t want to live hidden away,” he told AFP during a visit to Paris. The novelist’s life changed forever on […]
(AFP) A Canadian jihadist detained in Syria told AFP he has been “hung out to dry” by the Islamic State group like other foreign fighters and appealed to his government for help. Mohammad Ali, 28, was captured by the US-backed Syrian Democratic […]
(AFP) Two French women who fled the Islamic State group’s last pocket in Syria told AFP on Monday more foreigners were trapped inside, barred from leaving by Iraqi jihadists. The Muslim converts said they paid smugglers to take them out of the […]
(AFP) On February 14, 1989, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for British writer Salman Rushdie to be killed for writing “The Satanic Verses,” which the cleric said insulted Islam. In a fatwa, or religious decree, Khomeini urged “Muslims of the […]
(AFP) After years of waiting for his son to come home from Syria, Jacques Le Brun is cautiously hoping that day may be nearing — along with the chance to meet three grandchildren who have never seen France. “He’ll certainly go to prison, […]
(AFP) Geneva residents on Sunday voted for a controversial new “secularism law,” which will among other things ban elected officials and public employees from wearing visible religious symbols. More than 55 percent of voters in the Swiss canton backed the law, final […]
(AFP) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban launched his European elections campaign Sunday calling for voters to defend “Christian” nations against immigration, which he said led to the “virus of terrorism.” He also announced a seven-point package of tax breaks and subsidies to […]
(AFP) The support for a boycott of Israel by the first two Muslim women in the US Congress has opened a breach in the Democratic Party and threatens to create a fissure in the ironclad US-Israeli alliance. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib […]
(AFP) Two French journalists on Thursday told a terrorism trial in Brussels that they had “no doubt” the accused Jewish museum killer is the man who imprisoned and tortured them in Syria. The former hostages came to Brussels to testify against Mehdi […]
(AFP) US-backed forces in Syria said Wednesday they were detaining foreign Islamic State group fighters on a “daily basis,” days after confirming the capture of German jihadist Martin Lemke. AFP reported Lemke’s capture last week after speaking to two of his wives […]
(AFP) Outwardly, Komotini looks like other Greek cities, but there is a major difference: it has nine mosques whereas there are none in Athens. The northeastern city has existed from the second century and was captured by Ottoman-era Turkey in the 14th. […]
(AFP) France has raised the prospect of repatriating around 50 jihadists detained in Syria, creating a domestic political storm that highlights the difficulties posed by bringing extremists home. Successive French governments had insisted citizens who left to live or fight under the […]
(AFP) A young Frenchwoman on Monday pointed to Mehdi Nemmouche as the gunman at the Jewish museum in Brussels on May 24, 2014, the first witness at his trial to do so. Nemmouche, a 33-year-old Frenchman, faces life in prison if convicted […]
(AFP) Three men were Friday charged with supplying the weapon used by the gunman in the Christmas market attack in the French city of Strasbourg and placed in pre-trial detention, a judicial source said. The three suspects, from the same family and […]
(AFP) Four years after leaving Germany to live under the Islamic State group, 19-year-old Leonora has fled the jihadists’ last bastion in eastern Syria and says it’s time to go home. “I was a little bit naive,” she says in English, wearing […]
(AFP) US-backed Kurdish-led forces have detained German jihadist Martin Lemke after he fled the last pocket held by the Islamic State group in Syria, two of his wives said Thursday. His third wife, a German national who gave her name as Leonora, […]
(AFP) Three Americans hailed as heroes for thwarting a jihadist attack on a train between Amsterdam and Paris were officially welcomed as French citizens on Thursday in a ceremony in the US state of California. Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone, […]
(AFP) The Israelis orphaned by the murderous gun attack on Belgium’s Jewish Museum testified on Thursday in the trial of the accused attacker. The defendant, Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, appeared in the dock to insist that he was not behind the four […]
(AFP) The French alleged jihadist accused of carrying out a gun massacre in Belgium’s Jewish Museum denounced any attempt to intimidate trial lawyers and jurors Thursday. Appearing in the dock in Brussels main criminal court, 33-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche again denied shooting dead […]
(AFP) Two young Israeli women will Thursday face for the first time the alleged killer of their parents when they attend his trial for the Jewish museum attack in Brussels. The daughters of murdered Israeli couple Miriam and Emmanuel Riva will be […]
(AFP) German aid group Sea Watch said Tuesday it has filed a case at the European Human Rights Court against Italy for refusing to allow its ship carrying 47 rescued migrants to dock. The German NGO’s spokesman Ruben Neugebauer said the group […]
(AFP) France on Tuesday opened the door to repatriating more than a hundred jihadists being held in Syria, in a marked change in stance brought about by the planned withdrawal of US troops from the country. Paris is worried that French prisoners […]
(AFP) Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini said Sunday he was considering legal action against the crew of a Dutch-flagged rescue ship as calls grew for 47 migrants to be allowed to land. “We have concrete elements to declare that the captain and […]
(AFP) A painting in homage to terror victims by famous street artist Banksy has been stolen from the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 90 people were killed in 2015 in a jihadist attack. The white stencilled oeuvre showing a sad-faced girl […]
(AFP) The Belgian authorities have arrested two men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack and charged them with terrorism offences, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The main suspect was arrested in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek while his alleged accomplice was arrested near […]
(AFP) Denmark has seized just over 25,000 euros from migrants arriving in the country in the three years since passing a controversial law allowing for the confiscation of valuables, police said Thursday. Since the law was passed on January 26, 2015, officials […]
(AFP) German prosecutors Wednesday announced child rape and murder charges against a rejected Iraqi asylum-seeker in a case that fuelled a heated debate about immigrant crime. The accused in the “Susanna case,” 21-year-old Ali Bashar, had fled Germany after the crime for […]
(AFP) A German appeals court Wednesday lengthened the jail term for a Syrian refugee found guilty of war crimes and taking part in the kidnapping of a Canadian UN peacekeeper. The defendant, named only as Suliman al-S., 28, was sentenced to four […]
(AFP) Judges investigating the Jewish museum attack in Brussels rejected on Tuesday defence claims that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency may have played a role. Lawyers defending Mehdi Nemmouche deny charges that he shot dead four people at the museum in May 2014, […]
(AFP) Victims of the Jewish museum attack in Brussels were shot with “surgical” precision, first responders said Monday at the trial of French national Mehdi Nemmouche. Nemmouche, 33, the alleged jihadist gunman, faces life in prison if convicted of the charges of […]
(AFP) French anti-terror judges have recommended that 14 people be tried in connection with the January 2015 jihadist attacks in and around Paris, a judicial source told AFP Friday. The attacks against the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, a […]
(AFP) The mother of a victim of Belgium’s Jewish museum attack faced her son’s alleged killer for the first time on Friday, as the terror trial turned harrowing when the court was shown footage of the anti-Semitic murders. The accused gunman, Mehdi […]
(AFP) A man on trial as the alleged accomplice to the Jewish museum murders in Brussels denied any role in the 2014 shootings and said he was not a jihadist. Prosecutors told the court that Nacer Bendrer had been flagged years before […]
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