PARIS, June 16: A Pakistani and two Frenchmen were on Thursday given three-to-five-year prison sentences by a Paris court which found them guilty of aiding convicted “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a Paris-Miami flight three months after the attacks of Sept 11, 2001 in the United States. The three were convicted of associating with criminals in relation to a terrorist enterprise, three years after being arrested for their ties to Reid, who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes aboard a Miami-bound American Airlines flight on Dec 22, 2001.

Reid, a British national and self-proclaimed disciple of the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was sentenced to life in prison by a US court in January 2003.

French investigators said the Pakistani and two Frenchmen belonged to a group that helped Reid, but police say they also uncovered a Pakistani network that recruited fighters to carry out jihad, or holy war, abroad.

Ghulam, a 64-year-old Pakistani and president of a charity association called Chemin Droit (Right Path), received a five-year sentence for helping orient Reid on French soil and recruiting jihadists, although prosecutors stopped short of calling him an accomplice in the plot.

The two Frenchmen, Hassan el Cheguer and Hakim Mokhfi, both aged 31, were groomed by Ghulam to fight abroad, the court found.

The two were sentenced to four-year terms, with one year suspended — meaning they were released Thursday because of time already served in custody.

A fourth man, Kamel Lakhram, was found guilty of violating residency requirements after terrorism-related charges against him were dropped, and he was released after being sentenced to three months in prison, which also covered his detention period.

—AFP