[5] He married Sylvie, a French citizen, in 1990, while working as a youth worker in Corbeil-Essonnes.
CAGE, a London-based Islamic activist organization, claimed that Emirati police tortured Beghal during questioning and accused the British and French governments of 'complicity'.
[10] In October 2001, Beghal told magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière that he had visited Osama bin Laden's base in Afghanistan and planned a suicide bomb attack.
[11][12] During his time in prison, he met and mentored fellow prisoners Chérif Kouachi, one of the two brothers who committed the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting, as well as Amedy Coulibaly, who carried out the Fontenay-aux-Roses shooting and Porte de Vincennes siege.
[13] Stripped in 2006 of the French citizenship which he had acquired through his marriage, Beghal was released from prison and expelled to Algeria on 16 July 2018.