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France jails nine over fundraising for Uzbek militants

The ringleader of the operation funding the militants, who have ties to al-Qaeda, was sentenced to eight years while others received up to three years.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

A Paris court has jailed nine people for raising funds for an Uzbek militant group with ties to al-Qaeda which is accused of numerous attacks, reports the BBC.

Turkish-Dutch national Irfan Demirtas, the ringleader of the operation, was sentenced to eight years while the others received up to three years.

Operating in eastern France, the network sent 300,000 euros (£244,000; $392,000) to Pakistan or Afghanistan.

It was broken up four years ago by French, German and Dutch police.

The nine men were convicted of raising money for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which seeks to overthrow the former Soviet republic's President, Islam Karimov.

A tenth man was acquitted.

Read more of this report from the BBC.