German Court Jails Four over al-Qaida Bomb Plot
A German court on Thursday jailed four men for up to nine years for plotting to detonate home-made bombs in a crowd on the orders of jihadist militant network al-Qaida.
The "Duesseldorf cell", named after the western city where three of the men lived, had planned the attack but not yet decided on a target, the court found.
The ring leader, Moroccan national Abdeladim el-Kebir, 33, was sentenced to nine years in jail for planning the attack and being a member of a terrorist group.
Prosecutors said Kebir had received orders from a senior Al-Qaida operative while at a weapons training camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
German police started monitoring his movements in early 2010 following a tip-off based on U.S. intelligence, German media have reported.
Police arrested three of the men in April 2011 in Duesseldorf and the fourth in December in the western city of Bochum after months of surveillance.
Within weeks of the April arrests, U.S. Navy Seals shot dead al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and took away communications material, some of which further implicated the German group, media reports have said.
Prosecutors said the four men had been experimenting to build a bomb, which they hoped to detonate in a large crowd, to be followed by a second explosive device when emergency services arrived on the scene.
German-Moroccan national Jamil Seddiki, 34, received seven years and German-Iranian Amid Chaabi, 23, five and a half, also for membership in a terrorist group.
German Halil Simsek, 30, received a four and a half year prison term for supporting a terrorist group, at the end of the trial that lasted more than two years in Duesseldorf.
Source: Agence France Presse
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