Change.org | French IT engineer Thomas Gallay, whose supporters say his confession, trial and conviction were unfair.

A Moroccan appeals court on Wednesday upheld a guilty verdict for a Frenchman arrested in anti-terrorism raids last year. Thomas Gallay had claimed he signed a confession in Arabic that he could neither read nor understand.

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The 37-year-old Frenchman was sentenced to four years for giving a total of €70 to two Moroccan members of a terrorist cell.

A lower court had initially handed him a six-year sentence.

Gallay’s lawyer Frank Berton called the decision shameful and said his client was starting a hunger strike after the verdict.

The case has drawn criticism from rights groups and France's former justice minister, Christiane Taubira, who say his confession, trial and conviction were unfair.

Gallay, an IT engineer, had only just moved to Morocco to work remotely for his French employer when he was arrested in February 2016 in an anti-terror sweep and accused of supporting an extremist organisation.

His lawyer and mother say he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and unknowingly signed a confession handed to him by police.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

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