On March 22, 2016, the Brussels attacks killed 32 people in the Belgian capital, just a few months before another jihadist mass murder claimed 86 lives in Nice, France. Europe, and France in particular, was then the target of an unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks. It was in this particularly tense environment that Reda Kriket had been arrested in Argenteuil (Val-d’Oise) on March 24, 2016. The 40-year-old petty criminal was sentenced on appeal to 30 years in prison for allegedly planning an attack of uncommon scale, as Le Figaro reports.
At the time of his arrest, Reda Kriket was preparing to “massacre part of the population”, according to the indictment. In his flat, which he had rented under a false name, the forces of law and order discovered an extremely extensive arsenal of weapons: “six Kalashnikovs, seven handguns, 33 magazines”, Attorney General Naïma Rudloff recalled during the trial. Firearms that represented “three times the firepower of the attacks of November 13”. Explosives and 11,000 metal bullets that could be used to make the former were also found.
During the hearing, the prosecution stressed that Reda Kriket ” planned attacks that were coordinated and obviously directly linked to the Islamic State”. “The burning issue is not when they would strike, where they would strike, the issue is how many victims were targeted,” said Naïma Rudloff. Along with the jihadist, two other men accused of being involved in compiling the armoury were sentenced to the same punishment, the newspaper said.
Like Reda Kriket, 38-year-old Anis Bahri and 44-year-old Abderrahmane Ameuroud persistently refused to appear in court throughout the trial. In April 2021, all three were sentenced to 24 years in prison. The prosecution, which had demanded life imprisonment, appealed against the sentence.
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