Frenchman, Moroccan Get Lengthy Jail Terms for Attack Plot in France

French police stand guard in Paris. Reuters file photo
French police stand guard in Paris. Reuters file photo
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Frenchman, Moroccan Get Lengthy Jail Terms for Attack Plot in France

French police stand guard in Paris. Reuters file photo
French police stand guard in Paris. Reuters file photo

A Frenchman and a Moroccan received heavy prison terms on appeal Friday for an attack plot that was foiled after an intelligence agent posing as a militant infiltrated their cyber network, AFP reported.

Yassine Bousseria, 42, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for participation in a terrorist conspiracy to prepare terrorist acts, the same term he had been handed by a lower court in February.

The other man in the dock, Hicham El-Hanafi, 31, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, also in line with the lower court ruling.

A third person convicted in the case, Frenchman Hicham Makran, was sentenced to 22 years in jail in February and did not appeal.

The three were tried on charges of joining a terror group with a view to carrying out attacks, AFP said.

An agent from France's DGSI domestic intelligence service, using the codename Ulysse, had infiltrated communication networks of ISIS militants in a ruse that led to the arrest of the three.

The case began in 2016. After intelligence indicating ISIS was seeking to obtain weapons for a "violent action" on French soil, the DGSI agent managed to penetrate an encrypted Telegram messaging loop and make contact with an ISIS "emir" in Syria, nicknamed Sayyaf.

Sayyaf said the militants needed munitions including four Kalashnikovs, which Ulysse said he could supply.

In June 2016, Sayyaf sent Ulysse 13,300 euros ($16,000) in cash which was deposited on a grave in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

With this money, Ulysse then told Sayyaf that he had bought weapons and hid them in a forest north of Paris. The surroundings were then equipped with surveillance cameras.

French intelligence then received information that the two French citizens, who had been around the Turkish-Syrian border, had come home and were readying for action.

They were arrested and found to have a USB key encrypted with the coordinates of the arms cache.

"The facts established against Hicham El-Hanafi are the most serious that can be committed in the context of a terrorist conspiracy, since they were directly aimed at committing an attack with a weapon of war on French territory," the court heard Friday.



Rubio to Meet China's Wang on Sidelines of ASEAN Talks

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio takes part in a media briefing during the 58th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur on July 10, 2025. Mandel NGAN / POOL/AFP
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio takes part in a media briefing during the 58th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur on July 10, 2025. Mandel NGAN / POOL/AFP
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Rubio to Meet China's Wang on Sidelines of ASEAN Talks

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio takes part in a media briefing during the 58th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur on July 10, 2025. Mandel NGAN / POOL/AFP
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio takes part in a media briefing during the 58th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur on July 10, 2025. Mandel NGAN / POOL/AFP

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Friday on the sidelines of ASEAN talks in Malaysia where Washington's tariffs are in sharp focus.

Rubio and Wang's first face-to-face meeting since US President Donald Trump returned to office comes as Washington and Beijing are locked in disputes on everything from trade and fentanyl to Taiwan and technology.

Rubio, a longtime China hawk, and Wang are in Kuala Lumpur for a gathering of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which Japan, South Korea and Australia are also attending.

US officials said ahead of Rubio's first trip to the region as secretary of state that Washington was "prioritizing" its commitment to East and Southeast Asia.

Rubio said Thursday the United States has "no intention of abandoning" the Asia-Pacific region.

But US tariffs have overshadowed the conference and Rubio has sought to placate Asian trade partners, saying talks were ongoing and might result in "better" rates than for the rest of the world.

Trump has threatened punitive tariffs ranging from 20 to 50 percent against more than 20 countries, many of them in Asia, if they do not strike deals with Washington by August 1.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said this week that tariffs were being used as "sharpened instruments of geopolitical rivalry".

Wang on Thursday called for a "fairer and more reasonable" international order.

"At the same time, we are also confronted with challenges such as the impact of unilateral protectionism and the abuse of tariffs by a certain major country," Wang said.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have ratcheted up since Trump took office in January, with both countries engaging in a tariff war that briefly sent duties on each other's exports sky-high.

At one point the United States hit China with additional levies of 145 percent on its goods as both sides engaged in tit-for-tat escalation. China's countermeasures on US goods reached 125 percent.

Beijing and Washington agreed in May to temporarily slash their staggeringly high tariffs -- an outcome Trump dubbed a "total reset".

- Taiwan, South China Sea -

Before becoming Secretary of State in January, Rubio had already been one of the most vocal critics of China on the American political stage for many years.

Rubio and Wang are also likely to discuss US concerns over China's expansionary behavior in the South China Sea and Beijing's growing military pressure on Taiwan.

China claims the democratic self-ruled island as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control.

Like most countries, Washington has no formal diplomatic relations with the island.

However, the United States is Taiwan's biggest arms supplier and has shown increasing support for Taipei in the face of Beijing's growing military pressure on the island in recent years.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused China in late May of "credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power" in the Asia-Pacific region.

He also claimed that Beijing "trains every day" to invade Taiwan.

In response, Chinese diplomats accused the United States of using the Taiwan issue to "contain China" and called on Washington to stop "playing with fire".