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By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

BERLIN- A Syrian-born businessman who knew Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and has been accused of operating an al-Qaida front lashed out at President Bush on Thursday and denied any connection to terrorism. Mamoun Darkazanli, described by the FBI as a well-connected agent of Osama bin Laden, was questioned by German police shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But he was freed for lack of evidence and continues to live in Hamburg, Germany, where Atta and two other hijackers had lived. Speaking to The Associated Press in a telephone interview, Darkazanli bristled when...

Police in Hamburg shut down the notorious al-Quds mosque, renamed the Taiba mosque in 2008, led by German-Syrian national and voluntary imam Mamoun Darkazanli. Darkazanli (a.k.a. Abu Ilyas al-Suri) has been a suspected al-Qaeda operative, primarily as a financier and logistician, in the European Union for close to two decades. Long active in al-Qaeda circles, Darkazanli first surfaced on the radar of Western intelligence agencies when he purportedly helped procure a cargo ship named “Jennifer” for Osama bin Laden as early as 1993 (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 16, 2004). Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA- Federal Criminal Police Office) admitted that it had been...

Spain acquits Sept 11 suspect of conspiracy charge MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's High Court acquitted on Thursday a man accused of conspiring to help commit the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, court papers said. Judicial sources said the man, known as Abu Dahdah, would serve 12 years in jail for leading a terrorist group rather than the full 27 years to which he had been sentenced. Abu Dahdah, whose full name is Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, was accused of being an al Qaeda member. "We must absolve, and we do absolve, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas of the...

Arab satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera denounced the sentencing of its correspondent in Spain on Monday to seven years in jail on terrorism charges. Tayseer Alouni, 50, was found guilty by Spain's High Court of collaborating with a terrorist group but acquitted of being a member of al Qaeda. He was among 18 people sentenced at the trial, the biggest of suspected Islamist militants in Europe. "This is a black day for the Spanish judiciary which has deviated from all the norms of international justice," Al Jazeera news editor Ahmed al-Sheikh told the station. "It is a verdict that is based...

Imad Yarkas, one of 24 defendants on trial, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for the guilty verdicts of conspiracy and of being a leader of a terrorist organization.

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Inmates on Friday beat up a suspected al-Qaida cell leader jailed on charges he helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, breaking his jaw, nose and a tooth and injuring one of his eyes, Spanish officials said. Imad Yarkas, 42, a Syrian-born Spaniard, was set upon by other prisoners in the dining hall of a prison in the eastern city of Castellon, said officials at the Interior Ministry department that oversees Spain's prisons. Spanish government press officials did not give their names. An investigation has been opened because Yarkas, who is being held...

London al Qaeda link By Patrick Sawer and Hugh Dougherty, Evening Standard 15 March 2004 A London man is to be questioned over suspicions that he played a key role in the Madrid bombings. Abu Qatada is described as Osama bin Laden's "ambassador" in Europe and is regarded as one of the most dangerous Islamic terrorist leaders being held in Britain. He is said to be connected to one of the men held over the Spanish train bombings which left 200 dead. Anti-terror police will quiz the cleric, who is being held at Belmarsh prison, about his links with that...

AP Enterprise: Suspect in Madrid Bombing Is Tied to Sept. 11 Suspect Mar 14, 2004 By Andrew Selsky/ Associated Press Writer MADRID, Spain (AP) - One of the three Moroccans arrested in the Madrid train bombings is linked to a man jailed in Spain for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11 attack in the United States, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press. It was the latest suggestion that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group may have been involved in the bombings. A Sept. 17, 2003 indictment named Jamal Zougam, 30, as a "follower" of Imad Yarkas, who...

SALOU, Spain (AP) — A few months before Sept. 11, several al-Qaida operatives slipped into this Spanish beachside resort, blending in with the tourist crowds to hold what investigators increasingly suspect was a pivotal rendezvous in planning the terrorist plot. A senior Spanish official with extensive knowledge of the investigation said authorities now believe the mid-July gathering was the last face-to-face encounter between hijack ringleader Mohammed Atta and his al-Qaida liaisons in Europe. The main details of the conspiracy to crash commercial jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were largely in place by the time the meetings...