France Moves to Deport Brother of Bataclan Attacker to Morocco

After the deprivation of his French nationality by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, Karim Mohamed-Aggada was arrested on Friday at his home in Wissembourg by the soldiers of the Dijon antenna of the GIGN as part of an administrative operation. At 6 a.m., they "blew up the front door of the small Alsatian house located at 9 rue Neuve, an address that Karim Mohamed-Aggad shares with his mother since he was placed under house arrest upon his release from prison," reports DNA. "From my window, I saw men in black with helmets and balaclavas. When I heard the two explosions at 6 a.m. sharp, I immediately knew whose place it was," recounts a resident.

After his arrest, the 33-year-old man, born in Wissembourg to a Moroccan mother and Algerian father, should be expelled to Morocco "as soon as possible," said Josiane Chevalier, prefect of Bas-Rhin, noting that the administrative operation "is part of the fight against radicalization and the removal of people posing a danger to the security of our country as requested by the [Interior] minister." Known to the French justice system, Karim was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2016 for criminal conspiracy in relation to a terrorist enterprise, a sentence upheld on appeal the following year. He had left with his younger brother, Foued Mohamed-Aggad, for a stay in the Iraqi-Syrian zone between December 2013 and April 2014 to join the Islamic State (IS).

Karim was released in the summer of 2022, but he subsequently got into other trouble. He violated the control measures that had been assigned to him. He had quickly been incarcerated again for six months. According to the expert who had then met him, the Wissembourg resident had not broken with Salafi-jihadism.