Rachid Ramda

Rachid Ramda (born ,

Algeria Rachid Ramda was born in El Ogla on 29 September 1969, in the east of Algeria. He is from a Berber Chaouia family, although Arabic is his native language. The July 2005 London bombings changed sentiment and paved the way for Ramda's extradition in December 2005.

Trial in France After exhausting all his appeals, Ramda was handed over to French custody on 1 December 2005. Transferred to the Palais de Justice of Paris, he was formally informed of four indictments laid against him by the French justice: one for criminal association with a terrorist organisation (specifically for providing funding to the GIA, and three in relation to three terrorist attacks in Paris in 1995. The former, being a "délit", i.e. a crime of intermediate seriousness, would be tried in the Tribunal Correctionnel; and the latter three, considered felonies (that is, carrying a possible sentence of more than 10 years) in the Cour d'assises.

On 29 March 2006 Ramda was convicted of criminal association with a terrorist organisation and sentenced to ten years in prison by the Tribunal Correctionel, the maximum possible sentence. He had refused to co-operate in his own defense. This sentence was confirmed by the Appeal Court in December 2006.

In an October 2007 interview with Libération, Ramda rejected accusations that he was a mastermind of the Algerian radical Islamist movement and a prominent figure of the GIA. He was charged of "complicity of assassination in relation with a terrorist enterprise".