A coffin bearing the body of one of the two French radio journalists killed in Mali is carried at Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy, north of Paris, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013. The slayings of Ghislaine Dupont, 57, a senior correspondent, and Claude Verlon, 55, a production technician, stunned France and were an unheard of assault on Western journalists in Mali, where a French-led military operation this year aimed to clear out Islamic extremists who had taken over the vast north. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) (The Associated Press)
DAKAR, Senegal – A senior Malian intelligence official says the man who authorities have identified as the lead suspect in the kidnapping and murder of two French radio journalists last weekend has had previous run-ins with the law.
The official says Baye Ag Bakabo was imprisoned in 2009. The official could not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The official says Bakabo was jailed after a group of his men stole the vehicle of a Malian lieutenant in the city of Kidal.
He says Bakabo was part of a mafia that stole cars from dignitaries in the troubled northern city, and then sold them at a premium to members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, whose fighters were embedded in the desert north of the city.
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