A French citizen caught in early March waging jihad in Mali against his own country was once a serving police officer, his sister revealed on Monday, reports France 24.
Named only as Djamel, the 37-year-old French national of Algerian birth had joined the gendarmerie, a national police force that is part of the French military, at the end of the 1990s.
He then moved on to the plainclothes BAC (Anti-Criminal Brigade) and had ambitions of joining France’s notorious CRS riot police, his sister “Sonia” (not her real name) told RTL radio.
But when his career in law enforcement ended and his marriage broke down, Djamel drifted towards religious extremism before finally setting off to wage holy war in Africa.
He was taken prisoner at the beginning of March during French-led operations in northern Mali to flush out Islamists who had occupied the vast semi-arid region for ten months.
Sonia told RTL she was “ashamed of what he has done, ashamed of what he has become”.
“He did the worst thing possible,” she said. “He fought French soldiers, soldiers from a country where he grew up, a country that educated him and a country where he worked, a country that gave him a wife. He has betrayed his family. He has betrayed France. He has betrayed himself.”
Sonia, 30, from Grenoble in south-eastern France where Djamel grew up, said that as soon as her brother turned 18 he had applied for, and was awarded, French citizenship.
Read more of this report from France 24.