http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/ap/2006/10/26/europe/EU _GEN_France_Terrorism.php
French court convicts Moroccan man on terrorism charges linked to thwarted bomb plot The Associated Press THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2006 <http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/jump/europe.iht.com;cat=index;sz=336x280;ord=1 23456789?> <http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/ad/europe.iht.com;cat=index;sz=336x280;ord=123 456789?> PARIS A French court on Thursday convicted a Moroccan man on terrorism charges for his role in a thwarted bomb plot on the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion in 2003. Karim Mehdi, 37, received a nine-year prison sentence in Paris criminal court, and was ordered to be barred from France afterward. He had also been suspected of ties to two men involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, and was believed to have links to a suspected cell of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network operating out of Hamburg, Germany. Three of the suicide hijackers who seized control of commercial airliners for the Sept. 11 attacks - including the alleged ringleader, Mohammed Atta - allegedly had ties to the Hamburg cell. Mehdi was accused of planning to travel to La Reunion, off southeastern Africa, for a possible attack against a tourist complex on the island. Mehdi pleaded innocent at the start of his trial last month, and prosecutors had sought a maximum 10-year prison sentence on charges of "criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise." In court, authorities said he had contacts with Ziad Samir Jarrah, who piloted the United Airlines flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, and Ramzi Binalshibh, who allegedly helped plan the 9/11 attacks. During the trial, Mehdi told the court that he had "nothing to do with these stories" of an envisaged attack in La Reunion or a link with the so-called Hamburg cell. He said he met Jarrah and Binalshibh at a friend's house and spent only a half-hour with them, taking down their phone numbers. German police, who briefly detained Mehdi in April 2002, found the phone numbers on him. He was arrested in June 2003 at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris where he was in transit from Germany to La Reunion. The court examined Mehdi's travels, including a 1992 trip to Afghanistan and al-Qaida training camps, a 1993 trip to war-torn Bosnia and a return there in 1994 with a humanitarian agenda. Mehdi claimed he did not fight there. Investigators said that another trip in 1994 to Mauritania, in West Africa, was part of a plan to set up training camps there. Earlier this week, a French anti-terrorism judge wrapped up an investigation of a 2002 attack on a Tunisian synagogue, paving the way for a trial of the suicide bomber's network that included Christian Ganczarski, a German citizen who is also suspected of having ties to the Hamburg cell. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
