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3 Islamic Militant Suspects Back in Custody in France After Botched Arrests 3 Islamic Militant Suspects Back in Custody in France After Botched Arrests
(about 3 hours later)
PARIS — Three French citizens expelled by Turkey on suspicion of trying to join militants in Syria were back in custody Wednesday after walking free in Marseille while the French police waited at the wrong airport, hundreds of miles away. PARIS — Three French men suspected of joining militants in Syria were expecting to be arrested by the French police after Turkish authorities put them on flight home Tuesday. Instead, after their plane landed in the southern city of Marseilles, they walked free, while French intelligence officers waited at the wrong airport, hundreds of miles away.
The men, who turned themselves in to the French authorities, had initially surrendered to the police in Turkey after leaving Syria and were due to be flown to Orly Airport, outside Paris, from Istanbul on Tuesday, according to French news reports. But after the pilot refused to take the men on the Istanbul-Paris flight because they did not have the necessary documents for their expulsion, the Turkish authorities instead put them on a flight to Marseille. After finding one police station empty, the men eventually turned themselves in on Wednesday. But not before politicians, the media, the prime minister and the defense minister decried a national security “foul-up” that has laid bare Europe’s struggle to deal with an estimated 3,000 citizens — about 930 from France — who have left to join the ranks of jihadist groups in Syria, often using Turkey as a transit point.
As French intelligence officers waited to arrest them at Orly, the suspects easily passed through immigration checkpoints at the Marseille airport and walked free — a development that the French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, described as a “huge foul-up.” For France, the bungled security operation was particularly embarrassing and egregious. France is so fearful of French jihadists returning from Syria that last week the National Assembly approved legislation to prevent them from leaving.
The men were identified as Abdelouahab el-Baghdadi, 29, a brother-in-law of Mohamed Merah, who killed seven people, including three Jewish children, in Toulouse in 2012; Imad Jjebali, who was sentenced to prison for four years in 2009 on terrorism charges; and Gael Maurize, who was also known to French intelligence services for his possible links to a jihadist terrorist cell. The country has been on special alert since last week, when France launched airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and the group ordered its followers to attack French citizens. On Wednesday, a Qaeda offshoot in Algeria said it had beheaded a French hostage in retaliation for France’s participation.
Even as the men were walking the streets of Marseille, French television, citing the Interior Ministry, announced on Tuesday that they had been arrested on the tarmac at Orly and were being questioned by the police. Making matters worse, all three men at the center of the mix-up this week are well known to French counterterrorism officials and have long been under surveillance.
Officials were forced to backtrack later in the day and blamed Turkey for the fiasco. The ministry said in a statement late Tuesday that the French authorities had been notified of the change of airports only after the three men had landed in France, adding that it was investigating what happened. One was identified as Abdelouahab el-Baghdadi, 29, a brother-in-law of Mohamed Merah, who killed seven people, including three Jewish children, in Toulouse in 2012. The others are Imad Jjebali, a childhood friend of Mr. Merah who had previously been sentenced to four years in prison in 2009 on terrorism charges, and Gael Maurize, who was also known to French intelligence services for his alleged links to a jihadi terrorist cell.
Le Monde reported that the three men, who had been under surveillance by the French authorities, left for Syria in February to join militants with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. But after being disappointed by the Syrian jihad, they turned themselves in to Turkish border officials and demanded to be handed over to France. After three weeks of detention in an administrative center for breaching Turkish visa requirements, they were finally expelled. The three had turned themselves in to police in Turkey after leaving Syria and, after several weeks in detention, were due to be flown to Orly Airport, outside Paris, from Istanbul on Tuesday, according to Christian Etelin, who has acted as a lawyer for one of the men. After the pilot refused to take the men on his plane because they did not have the necessary documents for their expulsion, Turkish authorities instead put them on a flight to Marseilles.
On Wednesday, Mr. Le Drian said the fault lay with Turkey. "Turkey’s decision to put them on another flight was particularly misguided,” he said. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment, saying it was still investigating the case. As French intelligence officers waited to arrest the three men at Orly, the three men were passing unimpeded through passport control at the Marseilles airport, before renting a car and driving away.
At a time of a heightened terror alert in France, which last week launched airstrikes in Iraq against the Islamic State, the botched arrests generated embarrassment and soul-searching. The airstrikes led the Islamic State to call for the killing of French citizens. Even as the men were walking around at large, French television, citing the Interior Ministry, announced Tuesday that the three had been arrested on the tarmac at Orly and were being questioned by the police. Officials were later forced to recant.
The arrests also shined a light on Turkey’s role as a transit point for would-be jihadists from the West going to fight in Syria, highlighting a lack of cross-border coordination that is allowing them to slip through the cracks. Of the roughly 350 French citizens fighting in Syria, almost all crossed the Turkish border, according to Le Monde. A majority of the 180 French jihadists who have returned from Syria to France in recent months also passed through Turkey, the newspaper said. Mr. Le Drian, the defense minister, acknowledged on France Info radio on Wednesday that the software customs officials used to check for blacklisted passports was not working at the airport in Marseilles. But he laid blame for the fiasco on Turkey, which, the Defense Ministry said, had notified French authorities of the change of airports only after the three men had landed in France.
Christian Estrosi, a member of the opposition Union for a Popular Movement party and the mayor of Nice, said the three men expelled by Turkey “have humiliated us and made us a laughingstock in front of the entire world,” and declared, “This government is a government of incompetents.” The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Afairs declined to comment on Wednesday, saying it was still investigating.
“How can it be that we send planes to Iraq and do not properly control our borders?" Mr. Estrosi was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying. "There is war and jihad in France, just as in Iraq or Israel.” Mr. Etelin, who was Mr. Baghdadi’s lawyer until Wednesday, said the security failure was all the more remarkable since the three suspects had offered to turn themselves in to French authorities. He said by phone that the three men were astonished when they arrived in Marseilles to find no officers waiting for them.
An article in Le Monde, headlined “The Story of the Incredible Non-Arrest of Three French Jihadists,” said, “In the language of the intelligence services, this is what is called a huge failure; in the halls of the Ministry of Interior, there is talk of total mayhem,” He said they rented a car and drove toward Toulouse, and tried to turn themselves in at a village police station, but the police were away on rounds. “Everything in this story is absurd,” he said. They eventually turned themselves in in the village of Caylar, between Toulouse and Montpellier.
Alain Bauer, a criminologist with the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, who also worked as an adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, on issues linked to terrorism, called the episode a “security disaster.” He said the men had left for Syria earlier this year to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, but were shocked by its brutality and decided to flee Syria for Turkey in July. They were captured by ISIS and jailed on suspicion of being French spies, he said, but later escaped, walking about 19 miles to the Turkish border, where they turned themselves over to Turkish border guards. It was not possible to verify his version of events.
“Everybody participated in this security disaster: French intelligence which didn’t do proper verifications and technological tools which broke down,” he said. "It was caused by an accumulation of little things that have not been verified, nor controlled. And this is called the human factor.” “Like many who go to fight in Syria for jihad, they had fantasies of a Shariah state,” he said. “But they saw horrible things that repulsed them.”
Mr. Bauer also said the episode starkly illustrated the failure of Europe’s technological supports in the fight against terrorism. “They hardly work," he said, "they’re often slow, their financing is weak, and there is little intelligence sharing because they protect sources, and it weighs on the work.” At a time of heightened alarm about terrorism in France, the mix-up has generated both embarrassment and soul-searching, while prompting calls for better coordination with Turkey.
The three suspected jihadists “have humiliated us and made us a laughingstock in front of the entire world, and this government is a government of incompetents,” Christian Estrosi, a member of the opposition Union for a Popular Movement party, who is mayor of Nice, told the French broadcaster LCI. “How can it be that we send planes to Iraq and do not properly control our borders?”