Bassam Ayachi’s arrest is unique from others who have travelled to Syria and Iraq, like reported by thenational.ae
A 71-year-old Islamist cleric who is believed to have helped funnel dozens of fighters to Syria and Afghanistan has been arrested in Northern France.
Bassam Ayachi, a French-Syrian citizen who moved to France in the 1960’s, had spent several years in his homeland before returning to Europe. French police arrested him last week in the latest twist in a long-running battle between the veteran figure and law enforcement.
He has been named ‘The Godfather of Belgian Jihad’ for his time founding, Belgium Islamic Centre in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek – a heartland of extremism in western Europe. It rose to international prominence after it emerged that several of the jihadists involved in the Paris attacks of 2015 had been radicalised there. He served as the centre’s imam for two decades, during which time he is believed to have facilitated the travel of dozens of radicalised Belgian recruits to Syria and Afghanistan.
In 2013, he travelled to Syria alongside his son Abdelrahman Ayachi, who was killed in 2013 fighting with the Islamist group, Suquor Al Sham in Northern Syria’s Idlib province. In 2015, the older man, who had joined the same group, lost an arm in an airstrike.
He had been mentioned in some 40 cases in Belgium, but never charged or convicted. Following his arrest last week, French prosecutors charged him with conspiracy in a terrorist and criminal organisation for his time in Syria.
Ayachi had previously been arrested in Italy in 2009 when he was caught with a young French-Muslim convert hiding illegal immigrants in a camper van. He was accused of involvement in a network facilitating international terrorism, though released three years later on appeal. It was shortly after this release he fled to Syria.
