French court finds French blogger guilty of terrorism

Paris — French authorities have found a French blogger convicted of terrorism who was convicted in absentia of organizing and financing the November attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

The court said in a ruling Wednesday that Hadi Ghebrey, who had previously been convicted in another case, had been sentenced to eight years in prison for the 2015 attacks that killed 12 people in the French capital.

Prosecutors say Ghecrey helped coordinate the November 2015 attacks by providing “financial, logistical, and political support” to a group calling itself the “Mouvement d’Aiguille et d’Abdelhamid Abaaoud.”

In a separate case, Ghebre was convicted on charges that he helped fund and plot the November 17, 2016, Paris attacks.

Ghebre was the head of a website called Le Web that published a number of anti-Semitic material.

He was arrested in March 2016 on charges of incitement to violence.

In his ruling, Judge Philippe Mignot said Ghebrrey’s participation in the Paris attacks was part of a wider “coup” plan hatched by Abdelhamid Belkaid and Abdelhammed Abaaouaoua, who are now in prison.

Belkaid, who is serving a life sentence for organizing and orchestrating the November 15, 2016 Paris attacks, was found guilty of the 2015 crimes in April 2016.

Abaaouss trial was postponed until 2019 because of Belkays defense.

Belkas defense attorneys had asked the court to sentence Ghebels brother, Mohamed, to more than five years in jail for complicity in the attacks, arguing that he was the one who recruited the group of attackers.

In a letter to the court, Mohamed Gheebrey called the ruling “the clearest of any of the recent decisions to sentence individuals in connection with terrorism.”

The ruling comes as French President Emmanuel Macron seeks to improve relations with Russia after the French government banned travel and trade with the country for two years.