Paris (France) (AFP) - An investigating judge specializing in terrorism cases heard on Friday in Paris the Algerian opposition figure Hicham Abboud as part of an investigation related to an attempted murder that targeted him in February 2025 in northern France, according to an Agence France-Presse correspondent.
Published on: 06/11/2026 - 17:03
Hicham Abboud, a former Algerian intelligence officer and opposition journalist, has lived in France since the 1990s.
He returned to Algeria for a short period in 2011, taking advantage of a political openness during which he founded two newspapers, but they stopped publishing in 2013, so he returned to France for fear of judicial prosecutions.
Abboud blamed the Algerian authorities for the attempted murder he suffered in the Roubaix region. In response to a question from Agence France-Presse after the hearing, he said, "If there is someone who can suggest to me a hypothesis other than the Algerian regime, let him come and convince me of it."
He added, "I have no enemy except the Algerian regime and its arms. Even the defendants in the case admit that they do not know me, and they do not understand why they did what they did."
In the case, three young men face charges of attempted murder within an organized gang linked to a terrorist project, while a fourth faces charges of complicity in attempted murder and participation in a criminal terrorist gang, according to what a judicial source told AFP in May.
According to a source familiar with the file, investigators revealed the existence of a “contract to assassinate” Hisham Abboud in the context of investigations into a robbery at a museum near the city of Lyon in November 2024. By analyzing correspondence via the encrypted “Signal” application, investigators were able to identify a group of people suspected of being the perpetrators, including the person who was supposed to undertake the shooting operation in exchange for ten thousand euros.
In February 2025, the execution team headed to Roubaix, armed with a “murder order and address.” But the plan failed because Abboud was not there, according to sources close to the file.
Relations between Algeria and Paris include extremely sensitive files, such as the case of French sports journalist Christophe Glez, who has been imprisoned in Algeria since June 2025 after being convicted of “praising terrorism,” and the case of opposition figure Amir Boukhras, known as “Amir DZ,” who was kidnapped on April 29, 2024 in the Paris region, and then released on May 1.
Like Hicham Abboud, “Amir DZ” has been facing an arrest warrant since March 2022, and Algeria accuses him of belonging to a terrorist group.
© 2026 AFP
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