AFP PHOTO / STR | A member of the Moroccan special forces guard stands outside of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ) building on March 23, 2015 during a press conference by the governor of the BCIJ in Rabat

A Moroccan court has sentenced a younger brother of the suspected organiser of last year’s Paris attacks to two years in jail on terrorism-linked charges, state news agency MAP said on Friday.

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Yassine Abaaoud, was arrested a month before the Paris attacks after his plane landed in the southern Moroccan city of Agadir and has been held in custody since in Sale jail, near the capital Rabat.

His older brother, Abdelhamid, was the Belgian militant of Moroccan origin believed to have orchestrated the Nov. 13 bombings and shootings that killed 130 people in Paris. He was among those killed after the attacks in a police raid in a suburb of the city.

The authorities accused Yassine of being an “apologist for terrorism” and for not denouncing “terrorism crimes”, MAP reported without giving any further details. It was not clear if MAP or other media outlets had access to the courtroom.

His lawyer said that Yassine was not aware of his brother Abdelhamid’s plans, MAP said.

No further details have emerged from the trial, which ended on Thursday, and it was not clear if Yassine had helped Moroccan authorities in their investigations related to the Paris attacks nor why he had travelled to Morocco.

Moroccan security officials had provided information that helped their French counterparts launch a raid in the Paris suburb of St. Denis, sources have said, where Abdelhamid was killed.

Moroccan authorities have arrested scores of suspected Islamic State militants in recent months. On Friday, the kingdom’s interior ministry said it arrested a Moroccan suspected militant who joined an armed group in Libya.

(REUTERS)

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