French-Chechen ISIS sniper sentenced to 10 years only

Joachim Veliocas

On Nov. 9, the Paris Court of Appeal sentenced Khasnbek Torkayev, a Chechen national with French citizenship in 2008, to 10 years in prison.

Khasnbek, the son of a former Chechen minister, was facing a 30-year prison sentence, Le Parisien reported. During the hearing on Friday evening, the attorney general acknowledged the difficulty of substantiating the charges against Khasenbeck, who was arrested in 2015 in Moldova.

Khasnbek, 49, is a man who is convinced of the principle of polygamy (he has several wives) and a father of several children. He left France to go to Syria between 2013 and 2014.

He confessed that he stayed in Syria for three months to look for “his brothers who went to jihad” and not to war. Asked if he had participated in the fighting, he replied: “I did not fight, I just defended myself.” But he admitted that he took part in some patrols and saw the hostages and also participated in a battle near Aleppo on June 11, 2014.

The French justice convicted him for strong reasons, including that audio files found during the investigation showed the opposite. In April 2015, the sniper was inciting his brother to steal everything he could (…), break everything, and set fire to fire because “that’s all the French scum deserves.”

Torkayev said that this was said under the influence of “depression”. Hundreds of videos of people beheaded and snipers trained. He also found in his phone plans for tactical operations. He said the case was part of a “failed conspiracy by the Russian secret service with blatant complicity from French justice.”

Regarding his meeting with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he confirmed that he was in danger and that he did not share the deceased caliph’s ideology.

According to the Paris Chamber of Investigation, Torkayev was for several months in charge of a “combat group”, was an explosives expert and specialized in handling precision rifles.

Torkayev is also accused of leading a jihadist group in the Caucasus of the Islamic Front. He admitted that he was the emir of this group for only two weeks to replace a deceased prince in the front because he was the oldest in the group. Turayev described himself as a Salafi and said during his trial that the subject of Syria now is for him a closed one.

However, despite the overwhelming evidence against him, a 10-year prison sentence is not commensurate with the seriousness of this terrorist.