By HANNAH CLEAVER in Berlin
FRANKFURT - The first trial in Europe of al Qaeda terrorist suspects got off to a chaotic start yesterday with one of the five defendants barred from court after insulting the judge and shouting that God would defend him.
The trial of five Algerians accused of planning to let off a nail bomb at Strasbourg's Christmas market on New Year's Eve 2000 is expected to expose the reach of Osama bin Laden's network in Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Four of the men are charged with plotting to detonate explosives with intent to kill. The plot was foiled when they were arrested in Frankfurt days before the planned attack.
Lamine Maroni, 31, Aeurobi Beandali, 23, Salim Boukhari, 30 and Fouhad Sabour, 37, are also charged, with a fifth man, Samair Karimou, 33, of being members of a terrorist organisation.
The indictment accuses them of using faked credit cards to buy chemicals from chemists across Germany to make explosives - a technique they allegedly learned in Afghanistan.
Maroni was yesterday barred from Frankfurt's high court, where the trial is expected to last at least a year.
He insulted Judge Karlheinz Zeiher and shouted in English, "You want to kill me" and, "These people are Jews, they just want to take me for a ride".
When he was warned to calm down and listen to his defence lawyer he yelled in Arabic: "I don't need a defence, my God is my defender."
Because of Maroni's outbursts and with delays due to the stringent security arrangements that sealed off part of Frankfurt around the court, no real evidence was heard.
Beandali was thought to be ready to make a statement revealing the attack was not planned for the Christmas market but a synagogue in the city.
Investigations by detectives suggest a well-motivated, financed and organised group with connections throughout the continent long before September 11.
Police raids on two Frankfurt flats rented by the group yielded part-prepared explosives and detonators. They also had two flats in Baden-Baden, 65km from Strasbourg, for two people each, for the days before and after the planned attack.
A video was found showing the trip they made in a rented car from Baden-Baden to Strasbourg and the Christmas market area around the cathedral.
All the accused are believed to have trained in Afghanistan between 1998 and 2000, says prosecutor Kay Nehm, who led the investigation. They planned the attack after arriving in Europe and contacting radicals in Britain and Italy, he claims.
Three of the men are said to have lived in Britain for some time before moving to Germany, and Maroni's fingerprints are said to match those of a convicted robber in Britain.
French authorities were also involved in the operation to arrest the men. The Germans moved in after information was passed across the border.
Nehm also alleges the group intended to feed weapons and explosives into the Europe-wide network of radical Islamists, although there has not yet been any connection alleged between them and the Hamburg cell that included three of the September 11 suicide hijackers.
A group allegedly linked to al Qaeda claimed responsibility yesterday for the gas truck blast at a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba, which killed 16 people, including 10 Germans.
The claim was made in two London-based Arabic newspapers by a group calling itself the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Sites - the same group that said it was inspired by Osama bin Laden to carry out the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
- INDEPENDENT
Story archives:
Links: War against terrorism
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Al Qaeda trial starts in Germany amid chaos
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
