Suspected Al-Qaida men go on trial in Germany

Five Algerians charged with plotting to blow up a French holiday market go on trial in Germany today in a case expected to establish the extent of al-Qaida’s European network.

Responding to fears of reprisals by members of Osama bin Laden’s terror network, authorities in Frankfurt have launched some of the tightest ever security measures for a trial - including cameras and roadblocks around the court.

The five men are accused of planning an attack on New Year’s Eve 2000 in Strasbourg, France, with the intent to murder, belonging to a terrorist organisation, falsifying documents and weapons violations.

On the first day of the trial, expected to last at least a year, the five-judge panel will read the indictment. The defendants are expected to publicly enter pleas.

TV crews will be allowed to film the start of the trial, after Germany’s highest court yesterday overturned a ban on security grounds.

Federal prosecutors said the Algerians have already entered their pleas, but no details have been released for security reasons.

If found guilty, they face up to 10 years in jail.

Information from other European law enforcement agencies led to the arrests of four suspects in December 2000 and a fifth the following April.

The information included mobile phone conversations picked up by Italian authorities.

Transcripts of those conversations indicate that the five suspects were in contact with other suspected terrorists operating near Milan last October.

The report by Italian anti-terrorist police identified the suspects by their full names of Aeurobi Beandalis, 26, Fouhad Sabour, 37, Salim Boukari, 30, Lamine Maroni, 31, and Samir Karimou, 33.

However, Italian authorities said only Fouhad Sabour’s identity had been verified and the others were possibly aliases.

According to Cornelius Nestler, a law professor in Cologne, such transcripts could be crucial in helping the prosecution prove the five suspects were members of a terrorist organisation.

Under German law, prosecutors must either present testimony from another member of the organisation, or evidence of specific plans to carry out a crime, either from files, correspondence or tapped phone conversations.

‘‘If they do not have anything of this nature and none of the accused say anything about it, then it will be difficult to prove they were a terrorist organisation,’’ Nestler said.

In this case, only one of the defendants, Beandalis, has agreed to testify, and his lawyer, Achim Groepper, has declined to specify what he will say.

The German indictment said the five men had all trained in Afghanistan. The Italian document goes further, saying the camps were run by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

It was at the camps where the suspects are believed to have received training in constructing home-made explosives, extensive material for which was confiscated during the arrest, the Italian report said.

During a search of two Frankfurt apartments at the time of the initial arrests, authorities seized 20 kilos (44lbs) of a chemical that can be used to make explosives, as well as home-made detonators, a hand grenade, submachine guns, dismantled rifles, revolvers and ammunition.

The Italian report said they also found detailed handwritten instructions for making and use of the explosives and instructions on the use of toxic substances in lethal doses.

Further investigations also turned up information indicating that Boukari and Sabour had rented an apartment in the southwestern German city of Baden-Baden, 40 miles from Strasbourg, for the days surrounding the planned attack.

A video-tape showing Christmas market in front of the cathedral in Strasbourg and a busy square in the centre of town also found in the Baden-Baden searches led authorities to identify what they believe to be the intended target.