France has deported Rachid Aït El Hadj, a Moroccan who was convicted of terrorism in 2007 and then stripped of his French nationality, according to a police source cited by Le Figaro.
The 48-year-old was arrested on Saturday by the border police, following an expulsion order issued by the prefect of Yvelines on March 22, SchengenVisaInfo reports.
According to the information le Figaro possesses, the person in question was still in constant contact with the jihadist movement. Following El Hadj’s deportation, the Interior Minister of France, Gerald Darmanin thanked French authorities through a statement in his X account.
Thanks to the prefects, police officers, gendarmes, and intelligence service agents. We put in effort, but the efforts pay off to protect France.
Originally from Morocco, the 48-year-old was raised in a neighbourhood located in the western suburbs of Paris. He was one of five defendants tried for “participation in a criminal association with a view to preparing a terrorist act”.
They were on trial in particular for their connections with members of a jihadist group responsible for the attacks in Casablanca, Morocco, on May 16, 2003. As further reported by Le Figaro, several attacks on restaurants, hotels, and premises of a Jewish association led to 45 deaths, including three French citizens, and about a hundred injuries.
Aged between 38 and 41 at the time, they were sentenced to prison terms spanning from six to eight years.
All the individuals in question were released between 2009 and 2011. However, some of them continued to be of concern to the intelligence services.
Rachid Aït El Hadj is thus suspected of having had links with Sid Ahmed Ghlam, the author of the failed attack against a church in Villejuif, as well as Larossi Abballa, author of the Magnanville attack in which the police officers Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, and his companion, Jessica Schneider, were murdered.
Furthermore, they were all consequently deprived of their French nationality in 2015, despite an appeal to the Council of State.
In December, the Expulsion Commission Gave an Unfavorable Opinion On El Hadj’s Expulsion
However, Rachid Aït El Hadj remained in France. Last December, the expulsion commission issued an unfavourable opinion regarding his expulsion, assessing that his presence was not “likely to constitute a real, current and particularly serious threat to order and the public security of France.”
Nevertheless, the prefect of Yvelines issued an expulsion order for El Hadj on March 22. The latter was reportedly arrested last Saturday by the French police.
According to El Hadj’s lawyer, Vincent Brengarth, the expulsion took place quickly in the middle of the Easter weekend.
