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Trabelsi on trial
BRUSSELS - Belgium opened the trial on Thursday of 23 suspected al Qaeda collaborators, including a professional footballer who has confessed to knowing Osama bin Laden and plotting to attack a Belgian air force base. Other accused in Europe's latest high-profile trial of suspected Islamic militants face charges linking them to the killing of an Afghan commander days before the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. One key suspect is Tunisian-born footballer Nizar ben Abdelaziz Trabelsi. In an interview aired on RTBF radio, Trabelsi, 32, confessed to planning a bomb attack on the Kleine Brogel air force base, which anti-nuclear activists say houses U.S. nuclear weapons. Trabelsi was arrested in Brussels with explosives and firearms two days after the September 11 attacks. The suspects face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty on charges ranging from fraud and possession of firearms to belonging to a criminal organisation and recruiting for a foreign armed force.
Most are suspected members of a little-known Muslim group with ties to al Qaeda.
| That would probably be al-Tawhid, though Rooters doesn't get around to saying it... |
Two suspects, Algerian-born Amor ben Mohamed Sliti and Tarek ben Habib Maaroufi of Tunisia, are charged with trafficking in false passports and other crimes connected with the murder of Ahmad Shah Masood, an Afghan commander who fought the ousted Taliban regime. Two stolen Belgian passports were found on the bodies of Masood's killers.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-05-22 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=14579 |
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