Morocco jails brother of presumed Paris attacks ringleader

TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY NICOLAS GAUDICHET(COMBO) This combination of pictures made on December 26, 2015 shows an undated picture taken on November 16, 2015 from the February 2015 issue 7 of the Islamic State (IS) group online English-language magazine Dabiq, purportedly showing 27-year-old Belgian IS group leading militant Abdelhamid Abaaoud (L), also known as Abu Umar al-Baljiki and believed to be the mastermind of a jihadist cell dismantled in Belgium in January 2015, and an handout picture released in a “appel a temoins” (call for witnesses) by the French Police information service (SICOP) on November 15, 2015 showing a picture of Abdeslam Salah, suspected of being involved in the attacks that occured on November 13, 2015 in Paris.
IS group militant and alleged mastermind of the November 13 Paris terror attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud was “a good friend” and “a nice guy”, Salah Abdeslam said early 2015 to Belgian police officers, before being on the run since the Paris attacks. A logistics coordinator, a failed suicide bomber, a recruiter? The precise role of Salah Abdeslam, on the run since the Paris attacks, remains to clarify. / AFP PHOTO

RABAT , Mor (AFP) — A Moroccan court has sentenced the younger brother of suspected Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud to two years in prison on charges including justifying terrorism, state media reported.

According to his lawyer, Yassine Abaaoud was unaware of the activities of his brother, who was killed in a French police raid just days after the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people in Paris.

Moroccan intelligence helped put French investigators on the trail of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin who had appeared in grisly Islamic State group videos and was linked to a series of plots in Europe.

Five other defendants were sentenced to between two and five years in prison on separate terrorism related cases by the same court in Rabat’s twin city Sale on Thursday, the MAP state news agency reported.

Morocco, on guard against deadly attacks like those seen in Tunisia, says it has broken up 152 “terrorist cells” since 2002, including 31 with ties to jihadists in Iraq and Syria since 2013.

jm/dr/kir