SOFIA, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria expatriated a Moroccan citizen on Wednesday who was wanted for terrorist activity in his homeland, the interior ministry said here in a statement.

The 35-year-old Moroccan entered Bulgaria illegally and was arrested on Jan. 13 near the border with Turkey, the statement said.

He presented himself as a Syrian national but the authorities have revealed his true identity. Morocco wanted him extradited for terrorist activities and membership in the Islamic State, the statement said.

Last year, the compulsory administrative measures of "withdrawal of the right of residence", "expulsion" and "a ban for entry in the Republic of Bulgaria" were imposed on 31 people affiliated to terrorist activity. </s> BERLIN (AP) - Germany is preparing to deport a Moroccan man convicted in Hamburg of helping three of the Sept. 11 attackers as they got ready to strike New York and Washington.

Mounir el-Motassadeq was convicted in 2006 of membership in a terrorist organization and accessory to murder for his part in the plot.

The 44-year-old was sentenced to the maximum 15 years but received credit for time served after his November 2001 arrest.

Hamburg Interior Ministry spokesman Frank Reschreiter said that el-Motassadeq "will leave the country soon," but wouldn't specify exactly when he'd be returned to Morocco, saying authorities didn't want to jeopardize the procedure.

He said that "all the necessary procedural steps for this have been ticked off according to plan."

FILE - In this Jan. 8, 2007 file picture Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq waits prior his trial at a court in Hamburg, northern Germany, The Moroccan man has been sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence in Germany for helping three of the suicide pilots in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. (AP Photo/Fabian Bimmer, Pool) </s> MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. A Russian national accused of financing militants of the Islamic State terrorist organization (outlawed in Russia) in Syria has been extradited from Belgium, a source in the Center for Public Relations (CPR) of the Russian Federal Security Service told TASS.

"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation in association with the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office, the Interpol National Central Bureau (NCB) at the Russian Interior Ministry and the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service have extradited a Russian citizen Ali Abdul-Mutalipovich Gekhayev, born in 1988, who is on the international wanted list, from Belgium. Being a supporter of radical Islam, Gekhayev has lived full-time on the territory of the European Union countries since 2015, from which he provided financial support to the militants of the international terrorist organization ‘Islamic State’ banned in the Russian Federation in Syria," the CPR said.

In May 2017, based on the finding of the Russian side the accused was detained in Brussels and placed under pre-extradition arrest, the Center for Public Relations said. "As a result of coordinated efforts of Russian law enforcement bodies the supplied evidence of criminal activity of the wanted person allowed the Belgian authorities to comply with the extradition request," the CPR added.

On September 14, Gekhayev was extradited to Russia. Further investigative activities and search measures are being carried out. </s> Belgian authorities have extradited a 30-year-old Russian citizen at the request of Russia’s law enforcement agencies, the FSB said in a statement on Saturday. The man, identified as Ali Gekhaev, a radical Islamist, is accused of rendering financial support to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). He had lived in the EU since 2015, according to the intelligence service. </s> "Russia's Federal Security Service together with the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, the Russian Interior Ministry's National Central Bureaus of Interpol and the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service organized the extradition from Belgium of an internationally wanted Russian citizen Gekhaev Ali Abdul-Mutalipovich, born 1988," the statement said.

According to the statement, Gehaev was a supporter of radical Islam, since 2015 has lived in the territory of the European Union, from where he financed the militants of the Daesh terrorist group in Syria.

READ MORE: WATCH Syrian Army Storm Daesh Positions in Dormant Volcanos in Country's South

In May 2017, he was detained in Brussels and placed under pre-extradition arrest, the statement said.

Ali Gekhaev was extradited to Russia on September 14.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption The men were found guilty of joining Islamic State (file image)

Four French men have been sentenced to death by an Iraqi court after being found guilty of joining the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

Kévin Gonot, Léonard Lopez and Salim Machou were sentenced on Sunday and a fourth man, Mustapha Merzoughi, on Monday, the AFP news agency reported.

They were among 12 French citizens captured in Syria by US-backed fighters and transferred to Iraq for trial.

These are the first IS suspects from France to be sentenced to death.

What do we know about the four?

Gonot, 32, is from south-eastern France. He is believed to have entered Syria through Turkey to join the al-Nusra Front, which was once affiliated with al-Qaeda, before pledging allegiance to IS.

He was arrested in Syria with his mother, his wife, and his half-brother in December 2017.

Machou, 41, belonged to an IS cell composed of European fighters that has carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria and planned others in Paris and Brussels, according to the Centre d'Analyse du Terrorisme (CAT), a French think tank.

Lopez, a 32-year-old from Paris, also travelled with his wife and two children to IS-held Mosul in northern Iraq before entering Syria, CAT quotes French investigators as saying.

His lawyer, Nabil Boudi, condemned the trial as "summary justice".

Merzoughi, 37, from Toulouse and of Tunisian roots, reportedly passed through Belgium and Morocco and had religious and military training in Aleppo in northern Syria.

He said he was "not guilty of crimes and killings" and had simply travelled to Syria.

How has France reacted?

France has said its adult citizens should be tried locally and has refused to take them back.

When pressed on the issue in February, French President Emmanuel Macron declined to comment, saying it was a sovereign matter for Iraq.

But on Monday, the foreign ministry said France was "opposed in principle to the death penalty at all times" and would take "necessary steps" to prevent Iraq from carrying it out.

Human rights groups have heavily criticised the trials of suspected IS fighters in Iraq. Activists say the courts often rely on circumstantial evidence or confessions made under duress.

Why were the men transferred to Iraq?

IS once controlled vast swathes of territory stretching across Syria and Iraq. After years of fighting, Iraq declared victory on its side of the border in late 2017.

On the Syrian side, the main offensive was led by a US-backed alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The group captured the last stronghold held by the jihadists in March.

An estimated 1,000 foreign fighters - as well as many women and children - are estimated to be in SDF custody.

Iraq has offered to try all foreign fighters held by the SDF. Several hundreds have been transferred for trial by Iraqi courts but none have so far been executed.

What has happened to foreigners who joined IS?

More than 41,000 people from dozens of countries are estimated to have joined IS in Syria and Iraq - about a quarter of them women and children.

Almost 6,000 came from Western Europe.

Approximately 850 people from the UK were among them, including 145 women and 50 children.

The vast majority of IS militants are believed to have been either killed or captured. It is unclear how many foreigners have died.

Researchers suggest at least 7,000 have travelled back to their countries of origin.

Those countries have raised concerns about bringing hardened jihadists back and the challenges of gathering evidence to support prosecutions. </s> Three French men have been sentenced to death by an Iraqi court after being found guilty of joining ISIS .

Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou are the first French nationals to receive death sentences in Iraq.

They were among 12 other French citizens being prosecuted by the court over their alleged allegiance to the terrorist organisation.

"They were sentenced to execution after it was proven that they were members of the terrorist Islamic State organisation," said one court official, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The trio were captured in Syria by the Syrian Democratic Forces and have 30 days to appeal.

Iraq has taken in thousands of jihadists repatriated from Syria after they were captured by the US-backed force during the battle to capture ISIS' so-called "caliphate".

Hundreds were put on trial, with many of those convicted either sentenced to life in prison or death.

But it is the first time Iraq - among the five top 'executioner' nations in the world - convicts a French citizen to death.

It is understood it is only the second time the court sentences a foreigner to death.

Iraq’s Central Criminal Court in May revealed details of how it sentenced Tarek Jadaoun, 30, also known as Abu Hamza al-Beljiki, for being a senior fighter for the terrorist group.

He joined the organisation in 2014 before being arrested in Mosul, once ISIS' Iraqi stronghold, last summer.

“Al-Beljiki, who is of Moroccan origin, is one of the most wanted foreign fighters who fought on behalf of the terrorist organisation in Syria and Iraq,” Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, the spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council, said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch has criticised the Middle Eastern country's anti-terror trials, which it claims are usually only based on circumstantial evidence or confessions obtained through torture.

Tens of thousands of foreigners have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS or its precursor, al Qaeda, since 2003.

While the UN said 40,000 foreigners are believed to have joined the terrorist groups abroad, a King's College study in July found just short of 41,500 from 80 countries were affiliated with ISIS.

Some 5,904 of these were from Western Europe, while the biggest amount, 18,852, came from the Middle East and North Africa. </s> BERLIN — A Moroccan man convicted of helping Mohamed Atta and the other Hamburg-based Sept. 11 suicide pilots as they plotted their attacks on New York and Washington was deported Monday from Germany to his native country.

Mounir el Motassadeq, who was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and accessory to the murder of the 246 passengers and crew on the four jetliners used in the 2001 attacks, was flown by helicopter from a Hamburg prison on Monday morning.

Blindfolded and with his hands and ankles shackled, the 44-year-old was then led by two police officers to another helicopter while other heavily armed police in balaclavas patrolled the area and watched from rooftops.

Authorities wouldn’t comment on the operation for security reasons.

“Mr. Motassadeq will leave the country soon,” Hamburg Interior Ministry spokesman Frank Reschreiter told The Associated Press. “All the necessary procedural steps for this have been ticked off according to plan.”

El Motassadeq was released shortly before completing his 15-year-sentence on the condition that he agree to be deported to Morocco. That would allow Germany to re-arrest him if he ever returned to the country.

It wasn’t immediately clear what awaited him in Morocco.

El Motassadeq was convicted of being part of the so-called Hamburg cell, including Atta and fellow Sept. 11 pilots Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

German courts ruled that el Motassadeq was aware the three planned to hijack and crash planes, even though he might not have known specifics of the plot. They said el Motassadeq helped “watch the attackers’ backs and conceal them” by helping them keep up the appearance of being regular university students paying tuition and rent and transferring money.

El Motassadeq acknowledged training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan, but insisted he knew nothing of his friends’ plans to attack the U.S.

“I swear by God that I did know the attackers were in America,” he shouted in accented German at a sentencing hearing. “I swear by God that I did not know what they wanted to do.”

Originally arrested in Hamburg in November 2001, el Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 of membership in a terrorist organization and thousands of counts of accessory to murder — taking into account victims on the ground — becoming the first person convicted anywhere on charges related to Sept. 11. He was sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison.

However, a federal court overturned that verdict in 2004, largely because of a lack of evidence from al-Qaida suspects in U.S. custody, and sent the case back to Hamburg.

After a 2005 retrial, el Motassadeq was again convicted of membership in a terrorist organization that included Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah. But he was acquitted of being an accessory to murder after the court ruled it didn’t have enough evidence that he knew of the hijackers’ plot.

El Motassadeq was sentenced to seven years in prison at the time, but was freed in early 2006 until his appeal could be heard.

Later that year, the federal court reversed the Hamburg court’s acquittal of el Motassadeq on the accessory to murder charges, ruling that the evidence knew the plotters planned to hijack and crash planes. It limited the number of counts, however, to the 246 people killed aboard the airplanes and the 15-year sentence was restored. </s> Source: Xinhua| 2018-02-17 03:51:06|Editor: yan

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RABAT, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- the Court of Appeal of the Moroccan capital Rabat has acquitted Younes Chekkouri, a former Moroccan Guantanamo detainee, official MAP news agency reported on Friday.

Chekkouri was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and held in Guantanamo without charge for 14 years. In September 2015, the United States transferred him to Morocco as part of a renewed push by Barack Obama to release Guantanamo prisoners deemed to pose no threat.

The now 48-year-old Chekkouri was incarcerated after being handed over to the Moroccan authorities.

Following his preliminary hearing, the investigating judge in charge of terrorism cases ordered his prosecution on bail, in response to a motion from his defense, the report said.

Last May, Chekkouri was sentenced by a lower court to five years in prison for "setting up a criminal gang and undermining the internal security of the state," the same source noted.
A Moroccan national is extradited from Bulgaria to Morocco to face trial for terrorism and ISIL membership.