Thirteen suspected Islamist militants are facing terror charges in France that include plotting to kidnap a judge reported to be Jewish.
The group, nine of whom will be held in custody during the inquiry, were part of 19 alleged Islamic militants arrested on Friday in raids around the country, in which police seized various weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles. Their arrest came a week after police killed Mohamed Merah, an al Qaeda-inspired gunman who shot dead seven people, including three Jewish children, in three separate attacks.
A lawyer for his Algerian father says she has evidence his son pleaded his innocence in talks with police besieging his flat in Toulouse. Frenchauthorities have dismissed the allegation. Some of the suspects seized in Friday’s dawn raids had been planning to kidnap a judge who had conducted a child abuse probe into one of the cell in the eastern city of Lyons and who is now under police protection. French media reported he was Jewish magistrate Albert Levy.