Posted on 04/11/2003 9:58:40 AM PDT by knighthawk
ITALIAN police have arrested a Moroccan accused of links to a top al-Qaeda operative seized in Pakistan by the FBI last year, prosecutors in Milan said late today.
Milan magistrate Guido Salvini said Mohamed Daki, 38, with an address in the northern city of Reggio Emilia, was arrested on Sunday.
According to the charge sheet, Daki had contacts with Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged lieutenant of Osama bin Laden credited with planning the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Binalshibh was arrested in Pakistan on the anniversary of the attacks and brought to the United States to stand trial.
Prosecutors said Daki had been living in Reggio Emilia since arriving from Hamburg, Germany, in January.
He is accused of organising a "cell" comprising six other men, who were arrested on April 1, and accused of "plotting with the aim of carrying out acts of violence linked to international terrorism, including in states other than Italy".
The Milan court handling the case said last week the men "are linked to a terrorist organisation whose leader, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, is an important member of the al-Qaeda organisation".
The men have been accused of links to the Ansar al-Islam, a group based in northern Iraq which Washington alleges has connections with al-Qaeda, the organisation blamed for September 11.
They have been in detention since the beginning of the month and have been formally accused on similar charges to Daki.
The Milan court handling the case said the men "are linked to a terrorist organisation, whose leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is an important member of the al-Qaeda organisation".
They have also been accused of organising the recruitment of "fighters" for Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), possibly for combating the invading US and British forces in Iraq.
The arrest mandate said the men organised the travel of the recruits to Iraq via Syria, and also assisted by collecting money and arranging false identity papers for the volunteer fighters.
SEPTEMBER 17, 2001 : (IRAQI SHAKIR ARRESTED IN QATAR) Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi and employee of the Qatari Ministry of Awqaf, was arrested by the Qatar authorities and reportedly ill-treated while being interrogated. He was not charged with any offence and was released from detention. - Amnesty International
SEPTEMBER 17, 2001 : (IRAQI SHAKIR HELD BY QATAR, LET GO) Six days after September 11, Qatari authorities picked him up for questioning – but let him go. Yet a search of Shakir's apartment in Doha, the country's capital, yielded a treasure trove, including telephone records linking him to suspects in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Project Bojinka, a 1994 Manila plot to blow up civilian airlines over the Pacific Ocean. U.S. officials found an even more startling link, according to intelligence documents obtained by NEWSWEEK: Shakir had been present at a January 2000 Qaeda "summit" in Malaysia that was attended by two of the 9-11 hijackers. Authorities believe that the summit may have been a planning session for both the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole and 9-11. Shakir quickly left Qatar. - "AL QAEDA'S MAN IN IRAQ?, " Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman with Mark Hosenball and Steve Tuttle, © 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
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