Seddik Benbahlouli, famous robber of the Roubaix gang, was arrested in August in the United States after a quarter of a century on the run. Missing since 1996, he was sentenced in 2001 to 20 years of criminal imprisonment for his membership in the Roubaix Gang.
Under a false identity and thousands of kilometers from Roubaix. Seddik Benbahlouli, a former member of the famous gang of Roubaix robbers, was arrested in August in the United States, after a quarter of a century on the run, reports notably France 3 Hauts-de-France.
The robber of the “Roubaix gang” (a town in the north of France), Seddik Benbahlouli, 53, was arrested for violating the legislation on foreigners while he was traveling with false papers. American immigration police informed French authorities of his arrest on August 10.
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Sentenced to 20 years in prison
He is currently detained pending his possible extradition, detailed another source close to the investigation contacted by AFP. He was formally identified at the beginning of September thanks to photos sent by the French authorities.
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Seddik Benbahlouli was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment in absentia in 2001 for his participation in the Roubaix gang, a group of “Islamic robbers” in the words of the former director of the judicial police of Lille (northern France). ).
Financing the Islamist cause
This group was initially formed around a core group attending the Daawa mosque in Roubaix in the 1990s. Nine of the ten members had gone to Bosnia, alongside Arab and Afghan Islamists who had come to fight with the Bosnian army. In 1995 the idea was born of setting up a group in France and organizing robberies to finance the Islamist cause.
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Armed attack on a Brink’s van, robbery of a supermarket: at the beginning of 1996, they carried out several attacks with weapons of war in the metropolis of Lille, a shooting leaving one dead in Roubaix.
Last fugitive of the gang
On March 28, a car bomb attack, parked in front of a former police station, was narrowly avoided, a few days before a G7 meeting in Lille. The day after this failed attack, on March 29, 1996, the police attacked a group hideout in Roubaix.
Of the ten members of the “gang”, four were killed during the assault, one was killed the next day and three were arrested then sentenced to heavy prison terms in 2001. Lionel Dumont, arrested in 2003 in Germany after a runaway of almost eight years, was sentenced in 2007 to 25 years of criminal imprisonment, and placed under an electronic bracelet at the end of 2022. Only Seddik Benbahlouli had never been found until then.
2023-10-11 09:30:11
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