Lugano, 28 Feb. (AKI) - A court in southern Switzerland on Wednesday cleared seven defendants from Yemen, Somalia and Iraq of links to the al-Qaeda terror network in the country's first ever trial of al-Qaeda suspects, the Swissinfo website reported. The federal criminal court in Lugano rejected the prosecution's allegations that the defendants belonged to a criminal organisation run by the principal defendant - who admitted having had contact with a known al-Qaeda member Abdullah el Rimi, involved in attacks on the American naval destroyer USS Cole in 2000 and in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh in 2003. | However, the court did find six of the seven defendants guilty of violating foreign residency laws and handed down conditional sentences of up to 11 months. |
The defendants will receive up to 76,000 dollars in compensation for the time they spent in preventive custody, Swissinfo said, noting that experts had pointed out the lack of firm evidence in the case - consisting mainly of text messages and taped phone conversations. The trial, which opened last month in Lugano, is reckoned to have cost the Swiss state 820,000 dollars to hold.