Student Sentenced for Creating Jihadist Telegram Group in Research Attempt

In July 2016, under the pseudonym Abou Jaafar, he had created a discussion group on the encrypted messaging service Telegram in order, as he explained, to carry out "an ethnography of the Islamic State and radical Islam" at the heart of the jihadist networks.

Placed under judicial supervision since his indictment in September 2016, this native of Douarnenez (Finistère), without religion or criminal record, is prey to "bipolar disorders," argue his lawyers.

But his discussion group is made up of "individuals more dangerous than others," including the jihadist Rachid Kassim, then described as "public enemy number one" of France, noted the public prosecutor, who refuses to believe in this "scientific study" coming from an "apprentice sorcerer" in search of sensation.

His co-defendant, also a member of the discussion group, a 24-year-old Polynesian, also without a criminal record, but disabled by a form of Charcot’s disease, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, as requested by the public prosecutor. He had acknowledged during the investigation having considered attacking a police station or soldiers.