Posted on 04/15/2002 3:21:56 PM PDT by knighthawk
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The trial of five Algerian men, suspected of having links to al-Qaida and charged with plotting to blow up a French Christmas market in December 2000, opens under tight security Tuesday.
The five are accused of belonging to a terrorist organization, possessing explosives and weapons with the intent to kill, and falsifying documents.
Prosecutors will seek to establish direct links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, starting with an assertion in the indictment that all five trained at camps in Afghanistan between 1998-2000. The trial is expected to last up to a year, and if found guilty, the defendants could face up to 10 years in prison.
Concerns about public safety prompted the presiding judges to request to move the trial from one of Germany's largest cities to a prison courtroom outside Stuttgart built specifically to try homegrown leftist terrorists in the 1980s. But the Federal Criminal Court ruled security measures were sufficient for Germany's first attempt to bring Islamic extremists operating in this country to justice.
On Tuesday, participants will have to pass through a newly constructed security check at the courthouse. Extra surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the building and concrete roadblocks set up outside.
Police began patrolling the adjacent streets — near a busy shopping district in downtown Frankfurt — weeks before the trial.
``These are the highest security measures ever to be employed in Frankfurt,'' said court spokesman Wolfgang Frank.
Information gathered since the men's arrests more than a year ago has helped German authorities investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks to establish profiles of potential terrorists living in Germany.
Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrahi and Marwan al-Shehhi, had lived in Germany as students.
The search for connections between the Frankfurt and Hamburg cells delayed the trial, which was expected to open late last year. While no links to Sept. 11 have been found, the investigation led to the arrests of at least a dozen suspected terrorists in Italy, Spain and Britain, federal prosecutors said.
The Algerians have entered pleas, however a spokeswoman at the federal prosecutors' office, Frauke Scheuten, refused to provide details, citing security concerns. In keeping with German custom, the suspects' full names have not been disclosed.
They are identified as Aeurobi B., 26, Salim B., 30, Samir K., 33, Lamine M., 31 and Fouhad S., 37. Fouhad S. is a dual Algerian-French citizen.
According to the indictment, the suspects had contact with ``like-minded extremists'' in Britain and Italy and belonged to an international terror network comprised predominantly of North African extremists who call themselves the Nonaligned Mujahideen.
Four of the suspects were arrested in December 2000 after raids on two apartments in Frankfurt turned up more than 44 pounds of explosives and fake documents. A fifth suspected was arrested the following April.
The indictment also accuses the suspects of buying equipment needed to make homemade bombs.
``Using fake credit cards, they acquired chemical substances, material and equipment for the making of unconventional explosives,'' the indictment said. ``They bought the basic chemicals needed for making their own explosives from various pharmacies across the country.''
The intended target was a popular Christmas market set up around the Strasbourg Cathedral in neighboring France where holiday decorations and sweets were sold.
Among the evidence found was a videotape showing the 40-mile route from Baden-Baden in Germany to Strasbourg, where authorities uncovered two more apartments used as hide-outs, and the crowded market.
An off-camera voice called the scene ``a symbol of the heathens.''
An off-camera voice called the scene ``a symbol of the heathens.''
That videotape, according to Le Monde, also showed Strasbourg Cathedral and the Christmas Market (full of children) and said on voice-over, "We must destroy the temple of the enemies of Allah" ("Il faut détruire le temple des ennemis de Dieu").
First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.
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