Christophe Caze

French terrorist and criminal

Christophe Caze (22 October 1969–29 March 1996) was a French terrorist and criminal, a former medical student in Lille, France. Caze was one of France's foremost terrorists.

Caze was raised Catholic.^[1] A medical student,^[1] he travelled to Bosnia in 1992 to practice medicine, working at the Zenica hospital.^[2] He converted into Islam and joined the Bosnian mujahideen in the Bosnian War, a unit that fought Jihad against Serbs.^[1] He became an extremist, and is reported to have played football with heads of decapitated Serbs.^[1] Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was a Bosnian mujahideen, was the religious guide of Christophe Caze.^[3] Another French convert was Lionel Dumont, who also joined the mujahideen.

He returned to France a radical Islamist, and became the leader of a GIA group based in Roubaix, the "Gang de Roubaix".^[1] The group robbed banks, armoured cars and supermarkets with machine guns and grenade launchers.^[1]

In March 1996 the group planned to assassinate international leaders at the G7 meeting in Lille, using a car bomb.^[1] French police found the bomb, and then killed four in the group in an apartment shootout.^[1] Caze escaped but was shot dead the next day after trying to ram a police checkpoint,^[1] on motorway E17 near Kortrijk, Belgium. His address book was found to contain the contact information for Algerian resident in Canada, Fateh Kamel, another Bosnian mujahideen and suspect of militant ties.^[4]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Farmer 2010, p. 158.
^ Kohlmann 2004, p. 189.
^ "Liste des membres impliqués" (in French). ERTA.
^ Deliso 2007, p. 11.

Sources

Deliso, Christopher (2007). The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-99525-6.
Farmer, Brian R. (2010). Radical Islam in the West: Ideology and Challenge. McFarland. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-7864-6210-0.
Kohlmann, Evan (2004). Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network. Berg Publishers. ISBN 978-1-85973-802-3.
"Christophe Caze: de l'islamisme radical au grand banditisme". Le Temps. 2007-01-16. Archived from the original on 2012-01-14. Retrieved 2012-02-09.
"L'enfant du Nord mort en barbuConverti à l'islam, Christophe Caze a été tué après l'assaut de Roubaix". Libération. 1996-04-04. Retrieved 2012-02-09.