A Tunisian court has sentenced a shepherd to 14 years in prison for helping terrorists infiltrate the country to carry out a deadly bombing in the town of Ben Guerdane in 2016.
The court accused the shepherd, who was arrested that same year, of committing terrorist crimes and smuggling individuals with links to extremist organizations.
According to prosecutors, ISIS took advantage of the man’s knowledge of the desert roads leading to Libya to recruit him and task him with helping smuggle terrorists who have taken part in several attacks, including the one in Ben Guerdane, which lies 70 kilometers from the Libyan border.
The payments the man received from the extremist group allowed him to buy a four-wheeler and own a flock of 200 sheep, they said.
The shepherd was arrested in 2016 as he was plotting a terrorist attack in southern Tunisia along with a relative of his, who had joined ISIS and gone to Libya in 2013.
The court accused his relative of participating in the killing of Egyptian workers in Libya.
More than 50 militants were killed, along with 12 soldiers and seven civilians, in an ISIS assault in Ben Guerdane on March 7, 2016, which authorities described as an attempt by the terrorist organization to carve out terrain in Tunisia.
At the time, some militants were already in the town and others were brought in from Libya.
