The courthouse in Paris, where the trial takes place.

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Clément Follain / 20 Minutes

  • Three jihadists who planned an attack in Paris in December 2016 were tried before the special assize court in Paris.

    Among them, two Alsatians.

  • They were sentenced to terms ranging from twenty to thirty years in prison.

  • In view of their "dangerousness", the special assize court has attached their sentence to a security period of two-thirds.

Their plan to attack in Paris was imminent.

In November 2016, three jihadists, two from the Neuhof district in Strasbourg, were arrested.

They were convicted on Wednesday by the special assize court in Paris for criminal association terrorist.

After more than two weeks of trial.

Strasbourg's Hicham Makran was sentenced to twenty-two years imprisonment, his childhood friend Yassine Bousseria to twenty-four years and the Moroccan Hicham el-Hanafi to the maximum sentence of thirty years of imprisonment.

The national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (Pnat) had requested sentences ranging from twenty to thirty years in prison against the three men, suspected of having planned an attack in Paris in December 2016. In view of their "dangerousness", the court of Assises provided their sentence with a two-thirds security period.

Of Moroccan nationality and without attachment in France, Hicham el-Hanafi will be definitively prohibited from remaining on French territory at the end of his sentence.

The three convicted will also be registered in the file of perpetrators of terrorist offenses (Fijait).

The three men accepted the verdict without reaction.

More severe penalties than requisitions

Several lawyers did not hide their disappointment by noting that the court had been more severe than the Pnat's requisitions.

“Even the Pnat is outmoded,” one of them quipped, noting that the court had deliberated barely more than three hours before delivering its verdict.

The condemned have ten days to appeal.

In the morning, two of the accused, Yassine Bousseria and Hicham El-Hanafi, had asked that the court grant them "hope".

Hicham Makran - whose comprehension abilities are "limited" according to experts and who suffers from dyslexia - had not wished to speak one last time.

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  • Strasbourg

  • Justice

  • Terrorism