Trial of persons linked with terrorist groups began in Paris

The trial began in Paris on Tuesday of seven suspected Islamists, including an alleged Islamic State "executioner" in Syria -- the first such case to go to court since the group killed 130 people in the French capital last month.

Six of the men were in court for the opening of their trial on terrorism charges, accused of being part of a network that recruited people to travel to join Islamic State in Syria in 2013.

The seventh man, 35-year-old Salim Benghalem, is wanted on an international arrest warrant issued in May 2014. He is suspected of being one of Islamic State"s executioners and leading a group of French-speaking jihadis in the group"s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

 Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, was probably under orders from Benghalem.

A judicial source said Benghalem had already been sentenced five times between 2001 and 2010, including for attempted murder. He was known to security services for links to a radical Islamist cell in northeast Paris.

Cherif Kouachi, one of the perpetrators of the attack against the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris last January, had also been close to that cell.

The six other defendants, aged 23 to 37, will be asked to explain their role in the transfer of people from France to Syria. Five of them are believed to have traveled to Syria. The trial ends on Dec. 7.

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