Islamic militants jailed for French Metro bombings

A court in Paris has convicted and sentenced two Islamic militants to life in prison for their roles in a 1995 campaign of bombings of the Paris Metro that killed eight and wounded more than 200.

Boualem Bensaid and Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, members of a radical Algerian insurgency movement, are already serving prison sentences. They had been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison in September 1999 for criminal association with a terrorist organisation.

As the verdict was read in the courtroom yesterday, victims embraced and wiped away tears, while Bensaid shouted, “God is great!”

Bensaid was charged with placing a bomb that exploded on a train at the St Michel Metro stop on July 25, 1995, killing eight people and injuring about 150. However, the court only convicted him of complicity in that attack, the only deadly bombing.

But the court ruled that he carried out an attack on October 6, 1995 at the Maison Blanche stop that injured 18 people, and convicted him of complicity in an attack two weeks later at the Musee d’Orsay station.

Belkacem, the network’s alleged bomb expert, was convicted of carrying out the Musee d’Orsay attack, which injured 27 people.

A third suspect, Rachid Ramda, 33, was arrested in Britain in 1997. He was to have gone on trial as the group’s alleged banker, but Britain has refused to extradite him, and judges in Paris were expected to separate his case from the others and try him in absentia.

The Armed Islamic Group, known by its French acronym GIA, claimed responsibility for the bombings, saying it was punishing France for supporting Algeria’s military-backed government in its war on Islamic insurgents.

Bensaid was also convicted in November 2000 and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for a failed August 1995 attack on a TGV high-speed train and a shootout with security forces.