Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Israel PM Netanyahu Thanks French President Hollande For Capturing Terrorist



By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency


Jerusalem --- Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with French President Francois Hollande and expressed his appreciation for the vigorous action by the French security forces in bringing about the capture of the terrorist suspected of perpetrating the anti-Semitic attack in Brussels. The Prime Minister told the French President that he appreciates the latter's strong and consistent stand against anti-Semitism.

France had information that could have led to the immediate arrest of terrorist Mehdi Nemmouche before he was able to reach Brussels and attack the Jewish museum there, the French Novelle Observateur newspaper said today.

A picture released on June 1, 2014 shows the 29-year-old terrorist Mehdi Nemmouche.
(Photo: AFP)


European authorities reportedly knew Nemmouche had spent over a year in Syria and joined the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group.
However, he was able to travel through France freely until he was finally arrested in Marseille following a routine customs inspection. Nemmouche was stopped on May 29 by customs officers performing routine checks and declined to open his bag, leading the customs officers to evacuate the bus and check the contents of every bag aboard. The weapons found in his luggage “were arms of the same type used on May 24 in Brussels,” the French news agency AFP reported.

 Four people - an Israeli couple, a French woman and a Belgian man — were murdered in the terror attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the Palestinian unity government with the full backing from the Hamas terrorist organization is a Palestinian step against peace and in favor of terrorism and that, therefore, it would be a mistake to grant it legitimacy. The Prime Minister added that no European country would be prepared to accept a terrorist organization as part of its government.