Menad Benchellali

{{Short description|Alleged French chemical weapons specialist for al-Qaeda}}Menad Benchellali is a convicted terrorist arrested in France in December 2002,{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/alqaida/story/0,12469,1120823,00.html |title=Al-Qaida terror plot foiled, say French police |newspaper=The Guardian |date=January 12, 2004 |access-date=18 December 2019 |first=Jon |last=Henley |publisher=Guardian News & Media Limited}} and the reported brains behind the so-called Chechen Network, a group of Islamists who plotted a number of abortive terrorist attacks on French soil. {{cite book |last1=Hafez |first1=Mohammed M. |title=Suicide Bombers in Iraq: the Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom |date=2007 |publisher=United States Institute of Peace |location=Washington DC |page=172 |url=https://www.academia.edu/13568058/Book_Suicide_Bombers_in_Iraq_The_Strategy_and_Ideology_of_Martyrdom |access-date=25 March 2025}}

Benchellali was arrested as part of an investigation into efforts by French Islamists to send volunteers to fight Russian forces as part of the Second Chechen War. In January 2004, a number of Benchellali's associates were arrested by French police, who claimed to have thwarted chemical or biological weapons attacks.

Benchellali himself is reported to have been a chemical weapons specialist, and was known to his associates as The Chemist.{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/05/05/an-al-qaeda-chemist-and-the-quest-for-ricin/72d0f492-b8f3-4e98-bd74-369fa5bb2761/ |title=An Al Qaeda 'Chemist' and the Quest for Ricin |newspaper=Washington Post |date=May 4, 2004 |access-date=18 December 2019 |first=Jo |last=Warrick}} French investigators assert that, when Benchellali returned to France, from Afghanistan, he built a home lab in his bedroom, where he manufactured ricin.

Benchellali is reported to have sent his younger brother and a friend, Nizar Sassi, to Afghanistan.{{cite news |url=http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/~secure/docket/gitmo/pages/alice.htm |title=Nizar Sassi: A French Detainee Waiting to Return Home |work=Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism |first=Alice |last=Chang |access-date=18 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050914101924/http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/~secure/docket/gitmo/pages/alice.htm |archive-date=14 September 2005}}

Mourad and Sassis were captured and detained in Guantanamo.

Benchellali, was convicted, along with 24 others, on June 14, 2006 for their roles in planning a terrorist attack that was to have taken place in France to support Chechen independence.{{cite news |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060614.wfranterr0614/BNStory/International/home |title=French court convicts 25 for planning attack |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=June 14, 2006 |access-date=18 December 2019}}

Benchellali was described as the group's leader, and received a 10-year sentence. Benchellali's father, a younger brother, and his mother were also convicted for their roles.

Mourad Benchellali published a book about his experiences, and on June 14, 2006 the New York Times published an op-ed by Mourad, in which he blamed Menad for tricking him into attending a military training camp on what he thought would be a kind of vacation.{{cite news |newspaper=New York Times |date=June 14, 2006 |access-date=18 December 2019 |title=French Court Sentences 25 Islamic Extremists |first=Craig S. |last=Smith |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world/europe/14cnd-france.html}}{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world/europe/14iht-france.1974917.html |title=French court sentences 25 Islamic extremists - Europe - International Herald Tribune |first=Craig S. |last=Smith |date=14 June 2006 |access-date=18 December 2019 |via=NY Times |publisher=The New York Times Company |newspaper=The International Herald Tribune}} Mourad said he was looking forward to his day in court, for attending that training camp, after spending years in detention, without charge, in Guantanamo.