(Amsterdam, Netherlands) In March 2008, Lahbib Bachar, 30, and his wife, Hanan Sarrokh, 26, were convicted of plotting terrorist attacks within a Moroccan-origin Islamist network called the "Hofstad group."
Bachar and Sarrokh were each sentenced to three years in prison.
Court President Van der Groen said he would have sentenced the couple to between 8 and 10 years in jail if he had not taken mitigating circumstances into account. The most important was that the couple acted as witnesses against the meanwhile convicted terrorists Samir Azzouz and Noureddine el Fatmi. [...]Their convictions, however, were appealed and, although an Amsterdam court found Bachar and Sarrokh guilty of terrorism, they were sentenced to time served, 104 and 74 days respectively.
Bachar and Sarrokh admitted that they made all kinds of preparations for attacks, on the orders of Azzouz and El Fatmi, including hiding them from authorities in a Brussels apartment and trafficking automatic weapons to that apartment.
Meanwhile, it now has been disclosed that Lahbib Bachar is a second cousin to Ahmed Aboutaleb, the mayor of Rotterdam. It's not known whether the prosecution of Bachar and Sarrokh was influenced by having a major Dutch municipal politician in the family. It's also unknown how a candidate with convicted terrorists in his family can get elected to a major political position. Must be a Dutch thing.
In any event, Bachar and Sarrokh have returned to Dutch society to do whatever they wish.
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