French judge convicts 7 for Iraq war recruiting

PARIS — A French judge on Wednesday convicted seven men on terrorism charges for recruiting young French Muslims to fight against U.S. forces in Iraq.

Jean-Julien Xavier-Rolai, the prosecutor, had accused the group — five Frenchmen, a Moroccan and an Algerian — of sending about a dozen young Frenchmen to join Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida in Iraq leader who was killed in an American airstrike in 2006, after funneling them through radical religious establishments in Syria and Egypt.

The investigation of an alleged recruiting ring started four years ago after a young Frenchman was found dead in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The discovery fueled nationwide concern that France's poor immigrant communities could become fertile recruiting grounds for disenfranchised Muslim youths who might then turn to suicide attacks against European targets. France is home to an estimated 5 million Muslims, many from former colonies in North Africa.

Memories of terrorist attacks by Islamist networks in the mid-1990s are still fresh. Also, high rates of unemployment and crime in neighborhoods such as the 19th arrondissement and poor suburbs ringing big French cities have intensified concerns that disenchanted Muslim youths may be vulnerable to anti-Western rhetoric and recruitment by militant Islamist cells.

Over the years, investigators have found evidence of fewer than 20 French citizens who traveled to Iraq to participate in the war.

The judge Wednesday handed down sentences ranging from 18 months to seven years for the defendants, three of whom were ordered released for time served awaiting trial.

Each of the men confessed to traveling to Iraq, but denied participation in any terrorist cell. All were convicted of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," which carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

Judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte said the group's leader, Farid Benyettou, 27, used religious teachings to recruit young men for Iraq. She said in her ruling that he provided weapons, training and travel through Syria to Iraq. He was sentenced to six years.

During the trial, Benyettou — a former janitor-turned-street preacher — told the judge he merely had answered questions about Islam in his neighborhood.

Defense attorney Martin Pradel described the sentences as "extremely severe" but did not say whether any of the men would appeal.