AN ENDURING THREAT: EUROPE’S ISLAMIST TERROR NETWORKS THEN AND NOW 2.8 Other DAVID COURTAILLER 1020 Role: Logistics. Convicted for conspiring to help those engaged in terrorism. Bio: 1021 French national Courtailler was raised with his brother, Jerome, in Bonneville in the French Alps. The son of a butcher, he studied accounting at a Catholic school before his father’s business failed and 1022 his parents divorced, and he and Jerome became involved with alcohol and drug abuse. He converted 1023 1024 to Islam in 1996 after moving to Brighton and being told it would help with his drug problems. After moving to London with Jerome, David Courtailler was given money and a fake passport by friends at 1025 Finsbury Park Mosque who sent him to train in Afghanistan. He travelled via Pakistan and spent time at Khalden training camp alongside a number of other al-Qaeda militants including Ahmed Ressam and 1026 Richard Reid before returning to Europe in August 1998. David stayed in Tangiers, Morocco on his return before he returned to France, where he was arrested in 1999 after shoplifting a pair of shoes leading to the police being notified of his return. Suspected of involvement in the 1998 attacks on the US 1027 1028 Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he was interrogated in Paris before being released on bail. Courtailler fled to the UK and is thought to have moved to Leicester, while his fake French driving license 1029 was discovered with large quantities of explosives in a Birmingham apartment. In 2000, he was arrested alongside Djamel Beghal in Calais as Beghal oversaw a kidnapping plot, before disappearing again.1030 He 1031 appeared in court in France in March 2004 “accused of recruiting for al-Qaeda” and was sentenced to two years in prison with two years suspended after being convicted of “conspiring with criminals engaged 1032 in a terrorist enterprise” in May 2004. Foreign training/combat: Trained at Khalden training camp in Afghanistan until 1998. Movements: UK (1996); Afghanistan (1997-98); Morocco (1998); France (1999). Criminal history: Involved with drugs prior to converting to Islam. Arrested for shoplifting in France in 1033 1034 1999. Convicted of “conspiring with criminals engaged in a terrorist enterprise” in May 2004. Known to the authorities: Courtailler was known to the authorities on his return from Afghanistan, with 1035 US intelligence notifying the French authorities he was travelling to Europe in August 1998. He was 1036 also detained in 1999 as part of an investigation into the 1998 US Embassy attacks. ! ! 1020 ‘Frenchman jailed for terror ties’, BBC News, 25 May 2004, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3746951.stm, last visited: 9 August 2016. 1021 ‘Europe fears Islamic converts may give cover for extremism’, The New York Times, 19 July 2004. 1022 Rotella, S. and David Zucchino, ‘Embassy plot offers insight into terrorist recruitment, training’, The Chicago Tribune, 22 October 2001. 1023 ‘Europe fears Islamic converts may give cover for extremism’, The New York Times, 19 July 2004. 1024 Barnett, A. et al., ‘UK student's 'key terror role'’, Guardian, 28 October 2001. 1025 Norton-Taylor, R. and Rosie Cowan, ‘Madrid bomb suspect linked to UK extremists’, Guardian, 17 March 2004, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/17/spain.terrorism1, last visited: 9 August 2016. 1026 ‘Europe fears Islamic converts may give cover for extremism’, The New York Times, 19 July 2004. 1027 Barnett, A. et al., ‘UK student's 'key terror role'’, Guardian, 28 October 2001. 1028 ‘In Paris, a Frightening Look at Terror’s Inconspicuous Face; Probe: Officials say plot against U.S. Embassy offers insight into recruitment and training of ordinary young men’, Los Angeles Times, 21 October 2001, available at: http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/21/news/mn-59825/4, last visited: 9 August 2016. 1029 ‘Europe fears Islamic converts may give cover for extremism’, The New York Times, 19 July 2004. 1030 Sapsted, D., ‘Vet is convicted of kidnapping five children’, The Telegraph, 1 July 2005. 1031 ‘France puts 'Islamists' on trial’, BBC News, 17 March 2004, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3520974.stm, last visited: 9 August 2016. 1032 ‘Frenchman jailed for terror ties’, BBC News, 25 May 2004. 1033 ‘Europe fears Islamic converts may give cover for extremism’, The New York Times, 19 July 2004. 1034 ‘Frenchman jailed for terror ties’, BBC News, 25 May 2004. 1035 ‘Europe fears Islamic converts may give cover for extremism’, The New York Times, 19 July 2004. 1036 ‘In Paris, a Frightening Look at Terror’s Inconspicuous Face; Probe: Officials say plot against U.S. Embassy offers insight into recruitment and training of ordinary young men’, Los Angeles Times, 21 October 2001. ! ! 82 !