Fugitive Sentenced to 5 Years for 2013 Kidnapping in France After Return from Morocco

Eight years after the facts, Abdelnaji Ben Sellam, 31, is caught up by the French justice system. The Bourg-en-Bresse criminal court sentenced him to five years in prison, including one year suspended, for his involvement in a case of kidnapping, reports Le Progrès. A committal order was also issued, and the defendant was immediately taken to prison. The thirty-year-old had been sentenced in absentia in May 2015 to seven years in prison while he was on the run in Morocco. One of his two accomplices had committed suicide in February 2014 after three months of pre-trial detention. The other had been sentenced to five years in prison.

The facts took place in October 2013 in Oyonnax. Abdelnaji Ben Sellam and two other individuals had kidnapped, beaten, and tortured a young man for six hours, accusing him of having stolen drug products. While he was wanted by the police, the one to whom his two accomplices had attributed the main role had fled to Morocco, where he rebuilt his life, before returning to France in a semi-clandestine manner, two arrest warrants having been issued against him in 2014 and 2015.