KOCHI: A five-member team from France on Wednesday will interrogate an alleged operative of the so-called Islamic State (IS) terror outfit at the Viyyur Central Jail as part of the probe into the 2015 Paris terror strike. The NIA will facilitate the interrogation session and the French officers will be in Kerala for three days.
It will be a rare instance in which an accused lodged in an Indian jail will be interrogated by an investigation team from an EU-member state. The team will comprise investigators from France and officers of the French consulate.
The NIA court in Kochi granted permission for interrogating alleged IS operative Subahani Haja Moideen, a resident of Thodupuzha, at the jail from Wednesday to Friday.“The French delegation will reach the Central Jail on Wednesday morning. The interrogation will be carried out with the assistance of NIA officers from the agency’s Kochi and New Delhi units. The French team will be staying in Kochi and visit the Viyyur jail to complete the procedure,” said an officer with the state intelligence.
Subahani, an accused in the Kanakamala IS case, confessed to the NIA he had fought for the IS in Iraq in 2015. Subahani, who reached Iraq via Turkey, was trained at an IS camp before his induction into the terror outfit. He told the NIA he had fought for an IS regiment called Omer-Kathi-Kaliph, commanded by Abu Sulaimani Al Francisse. During his time there, some of the masterminds of the Paris attack, including Abdel Hamid, Abdesalam and Mohammad Usman, visited Sulaimani.
He decided to return to India after one of his friends was charred to death on the battlefield. Subahani was lodged at a jail in Raqqa, the IS’ de facto capital, in Syria, before he was let out after he agreed to work for the dreaded terror outfit in India.