The Constitutional Council validates deprivation of nationality of a … – Les Echos

The Constitutional Council validates deprivation of nationality of a … – Les Echos

+ DOCUMENT Convicted terrorist Ahmed Sahnouni had stripped French citizenship in May 2014. The Sages considered “consistent with the Constitution,” the provisions of the Civil Code challenged by his lawyer

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The Constitutional Council ruled and gave the green light to the deprivation of nationality Sahnouni Ahmed, a French-Moroccan jihadist convicted of terrorism. It had been stripped of French nationality through a decree signed by the Prime Minister, Manuel Valls and the Minister of the Interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, May 28, 2014.

The Sages considered “consistent with the Constitution,” the provisions of the Civil Code challenged by Nurettin Meseci, Ahmed Sahnouni the lawyer.

He had made a priority issue of constitutionality (QPC) challenging two provisions of Article 25 of the Civil Code which provides that “individual who acquired French nationality may” be deposed by decree, especially if he has been convicted of a “crime or offense constituting a terrorist act.”

“The facts of particular gravity”

In explaining its decision the Constitutional Council that it had ‘As in 1996, found that people who have acquired French nationality and those to which French nationality was assigned at birth are in the same situation, but that the difference in treatment introduced in order to fight against terrorism does not infringe the principle of equality ‘.

In addition, the Sages “deemed to be constitutional consideration for acts committed prior to the acquisition of French nationality and extension of time made in 2006. It noted in particular that the period of fifteen years from the acquisition of French nationality and the allegations concerns only the facts of particular gravity “.

“An abuse of process”

On January 13, the lawyer pleaded Nurettin Meseci break of equality between French born and naturalized French introduced, he said, by the decree of May 2014. The lawyer also denounced the disproportionality of a text which moved in 2006 from ten to fifteen years the two periods in which can be a pronounced deprivation of nationality, after its acquisition and after the commission of terrorist acts for which the individual is convicted.

He also criticized “an abuse of procedure” according to him ” to expel his client to Morocco, where he may be sentenced to twenty years in prison “for the same offense.

Highlights

This decision was eagerly awaited in that the issue of this measure has returned to the forefront following the terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo there two weeks. This week, Manuel Valls announced a “transpartisan reflection on the reactivation of the death of national indignity” in the case of French jihadists. On the issue of dual nationality, Premier awaiting the opinion of the Sages. The government intends, in fact, use this measure in the range of tools in the fight against terrorism.

Wednesday, during his visit to the 20h of France 2, Nicolas Sarkozy himself clearly in favor of revocation of French nationality for binational jihadists. “We must withdraw their nationality so that they no longer have to leave the territory,” said the president of the UMP.

The course of Ahmed Sahnouni

Born in Casablanca in 1970 and became a French citizen in February 2003, Ahmed Sahnouni was stripped of French nationality on May 28 by a decree signed by Manuel Valls and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. Arrested in May 2010 investigators from the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI), then it was believed to be responsible for a web recruitment network Al Qaeda. In March 2013, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for “criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise”. It is releasable end of 2015.

Les Echos