Two men were convicted of involvement in a terrorist criminal organisation.

The special jury court in Paris on Friday April 15, in an appeal, sentenced two men suspected of wanting to commit “a mass murder” in Paris to 24 and 30 years in prison respectively, confirming the sentence of the first instance.

42-year-old Yassine Bousseria was found guilty of involvement in a terrorist criminal organisation for the preparation of acts of terrorism and sentenced to 24 years’ imprisonment with two-thirds security detention, while 31-year-old Moroccan Hicham El-Hanafi was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment, the maximum penalty provided by law, with two-thirds security detention.

“The facts established against Hicham El-Hanafi are the most serious that can be committed within the framework of a terrorist group, since they are directly aimed at the carrying out of an assassination using weapons of war on French territory,” said the special court, ruling on appeal. With regard to Yassine Bousseria, the court noted “his real difficulties of internal realisation and the emphasis on his religious practice in detention”. The prosecutor general had on Thursday demanded 30 years’ imprisonment for Hicham El-Hanafi, described as a “genius of terrorism”, and 25 years’ imprisonment for Strasbourg’s Yassine Bousseria. Le Figaro

They are the last members of a network presumably controlled remotely from Syria, with branches in Strasbourg, Marseille and Portugal. Strasbourg and Marseille: the two cities had been the scene of a major coordinated anti-terrorist operation on the night of 19-20 November 2016, during which seven men had been arrested.

There was urgency: according to the information provided by the officials of the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI), the members of the Strasbourg-Marseille group planned to take action in the Paris area ten days later. Possible targets included Disneyland Paris, the Christmas market on the Champs-Élysées, religious sites in the capital or even 36 Quai des Orfèvres, the legendary headquarters of the Paris Criminal Investigation Department, which has since moved.

According to residents of the houses in the Rue des Canonniers, they were “not religious at all” and did not attend the mosque. These “good guys”, described as ” an open mind” and always “smiling”, seem to have applied taqiya, a practice that consists in hiding one’s true ideology. Bernard Cazeneuve, then Minister of the Interior, spoke of a “long-planned terrorist action on our soil” having been prevented when they were taken into police custody.