AN ENDURING THREAT: EUROPE’S ISLAMIST TERROR NETWORKS THEN AND NOW Daoudi fled to Leicester and contacted Brahim Benmerzouga, who was put under surveillance. On 25 725 September, he was arrested alongside Daoudi and Meziane, with police finding forged documents and at least “60 films promoting suicide bombings and martyrdom, including 19 copies of a video of Osama bin Laden”. He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud and entering into a funding arrangement for the purpose of terrorism in April 2003 and jailed for 11 years.726 He was deported to Algeria on 26 January 727 2010. Foreign training/combat: Unknown – believed to have been a member of the GIA in Algeria. 728 Movements: UK (1997). Criminal history: Arrested in December 1999 for opening a bank account with a fake passport and 729 disappeared after being released on bail. Convicted of conspiracy to defraud and entering into a funding 730 arrangement for the purpose of terrorism in April 2003. Known to the authorities: Not in relation to terrorism until he was put under surveillance following Kamel 731 Daoudi’s arrival in the UK in 2001. Networks and associates: US Embassy and Cultural Centre plot (2001) -! : Baghdad Meziane [Convicted together in April 732 2003]; Kamel Daoudi [Arrested together after Daoudi fled to his house following Beghal’s 733 arrest, Benmerzouga had helped Daoudi travel to Afghanistan]; Djamel Beghal [Beghal visited 734 Benmerzouga in Leicester en route to train in Afghanistan]. BAGHDAD MEZIANE Role: 735 736 Financier. Arrested in connection with the US Embassy bomb plot, Meziane was convicted of 737 funding al-Qaeda through counterfeit credit cards from almost 200 stolen bank details. Bio: Like Benmerzouga, Meziane lived in the UK illegally following his entry from Algeria in 1997, and 738 is also alleged to have been a member of the GIA. He claimed asylum in 1999, having previously done 739 so in Germany and settled in Spinney Hill, Leicester, working at the same sandwich factory as 740 Benmerzouga and possessed a passport in the name of Cyril Jacob which he had used to get a job and gain benefits. He worked alongside Brahim Benmerzouga to run a fraud and forgery operation which raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for al-Qaedaand provided other extremists with false identities. ! ! 725 Bird, S., ‘Quiet existence in Leicester suburb masked complex terrorist network’, The Times, 2 April 2003. 726 Count 1, private correspondence, Leicester Crown Court, 10 June 2009; and ‘Terror-link pair jailed’, BBC News, 1 April 2003. 727 ‘T v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, SC/31/2005’, United Kingdom: Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), 22 March 2010, para. 17, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4bab727e2.html, last visited: 9 August2016. 728 Mendick, R., ‘Leicester terrorist cell that laid seeds of Paris atrocity’, The Telegraph, 17 January 2015. 729 ‘Algerian pair ‘plotted to wage holy war’, BBC News, 5 February 2005, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2729241.stm, last visited: 9 August 2016. 730 Count 1, private correspondence, Leicester Crown Court, 10 June 2009. 731 Bird, S., ‘Quiet existence in Leicester suburb masked complex terrorist network’, The Times, 2 April 2003. 732 Count 1, private correspondence, Leicester Crown Court, 10 June 2009. 733 Bird, S., ‘Quiet existence in Leicester suburb masked complex terrorist network’, The Times, 2 April 2003. 734 ‘Convicted terror leader with link to Paris whom we cannot deport’, The Telegraph, 17 January 2015. 735 Count 1, private correspondence, Leicester Crown Court, 10 June 2009. 736 ‘A nation challenged: London; British charge 2 Algerians with belonging to al-Qaeda’, The New York Times, 18 January 2002. 737 ‘Terror-link pair jailed’, BBC News, 1 April 2003. 738 Mendick, R., ‘Leicester terrorist cell that laid seeds of Paris atrocity’, The Telegraph, 17 January 2015. 739 ‘Algerian pair ‘plotted to wage holy war’, BBC News, 5 February 2005. 740 ‘Quiet lives hid a quest to recruit for global jihad’, The Telegraph, 2 April 2003. ! ! 59 !