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Two terrorism suspects to be charged over killings of two police officials in France
France: two men linked to jihadist who murdered police couple charged
(about 7 hours later)
A French prosecutor has asked that two suspects with links to the killer of two French police officials be handed preliminary terrorism charges in connection with the murders.
Two men linked to a jihadist who killed a French police officer and his partner were charged and detained by an anti-terror court Saturday.
There was a morning deadline to release Charaf-Din Aberouz and Saad Rajraji or pursue charges, and the prosecutor moved to prolong their detention. The decision to charge the suspects will be technically validated by an anti-terrorism judge later on Saturday.
Saad Rajraji, 27, and Charaf-Din Aberouz, 29, were charged with having links to a terrorist group, but not in connection to the Isis-inspired murder of the police couple carried out by Larossi Abballa last Monday.
Both men, aged 27 and 29 respectively, were convicted along with the police killer, Larossi Abballa, in September 2013 for their roles in a jihadi network on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and claimed allegiance to Islamic State group.
Related: French prime minister defends security forces after Isis-linked murders
Abballa, 25, knifed to death officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and police administrator Jessica Schneider at their home on Monday.
The two men had been convicted along with Abballa in September 2013 as part of a network to send jihadists to Pakistan, judicial sources close to the investigation said.
Abballa was killed by police shortly after the stabbings, which shocked a country that has been in a state of emergency since jihadi attacks in Paris killed 130 people in November.
A third man arrested in the case was released without charge.
It was unclear whether Abballa knew either of his victims. But he had crossed paths with the law and Commander Salvaing had worked in the Yvelines department, where both men lived, since 2001. In 2014 Salvaing was appointed No 2 at the police station in Mureaux. Abballa and his family lived in a nearby town and at one point Abballa apparently had a food delivery business in Mureaux.
Abballa, a convicted radical who had been under surveillance, murdered the police officer and his partner outside their home and then was killed himself in a police raid.
Abballa was among eight people convicted in 2013 for his role in a jihadi network sending recruits to the lawless border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sentenced to three years in prison, with six months suspended, he was freed immediately because under French law, time in detention during an investigation counts toward a prison term.
Before he was killed Abballa posted a live Facebook video of himself in which he admitted the murders and urged fellow jihadists to carry out more bloodshed.
Monday’s assault in a small town north-west of Paris was the first deadly strike in France since the co-ordinated attacks in the capital by an Isis cell in November, which killed 130 people.
