Algerian to spend life in prison for 1995 Paris attacks

Nicolas Vaux-Montagny

Associated Press

PARIS: A French appeals court on Tuesday confirmed a life prison sentence for an Algerian convicted of helping fund and organize a string of deadly terrorist attacks in Paris nearly 15 years ago. Rachid Ramda has always denied a role in the attacks, which killed eight people and wounded some 200 in 1995. When the verdict was read, he called out “God is great!” three times.

The verdict followed the recommendation of prosecutor Anne Vosgien, who had urged the court to remember it had “the power to do its utmost so that he can’t ever do this again.” Ramda was sentenced to life in prison in a 2007 trial that took place after he was extradited from Britain to France following a decade-long wrangle. The appeals court confirmed that sentence Tuesday.

Gas cooking canisters loaded with nails, some hidden in garbage cans, were used in the 1995 bombings.

All the fatalities and most of the injuries occurred during a July 25, 1995, bombing at the Saint-Michel subway stop in the heart of Paris. Two other attacks, which wounded 44 people, followed, at the Maison-Blanche subway stop and the Musee d’Orsay train station.

The Algerian insurgency movement, the Armed Islamic Group, claimed responsibility for those and other attacks that year. The group relied on logistical and other support in France for its insurgency in the former French colony.

Ramda was based in Britain during the attacks, and was arrested soon afterward at the request of French authorities. But he spent 10 years in British custody before being extradited to France in December 2005.

During Ramda’s trial, he was portrayed as the movement’s financier. He was convicted of complicity in murder through aid and assistance and furnishing instructions or orders.

Two other Armed Islamic Group members – Boualem Bensaid, the mastermind of the Saint-Michel attack, and Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, the radical movement’s bomb expert – are serving life sentences handed down by a French court in 2002.