| No wow about it. France is trying to keep its own backyard clean, even while ignoring the rest of the world... |
Ten suspected Islamic militants, including one of Osama bin Laden's alleged associates, went on trial Wednesday in connection with the millennium plot to attack the Christmas market in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.
Are the French seeing the light?
Eight of the suspects were on hand for the trial at the Paris criminal court. Another is detained in Britain while one who had been released pending trial did not appear in court. All are Algerians or French-Algerians. The trial is expected to last three months. Four of the suspects allegedly trained in the use of arms and explosives in al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s. All are suspected of involvement, to varying degrees, in a plan to attack the market on New Year's Eve 2000. The well-known market is set up around the city cathedral during the Christmas period and becomes a major gathering place. The 10 are charged with criminal association with a terrorist enterprise, a charge that can bring a 10-year prison term.
France opened an investigation after four suspected Islamic radicals were arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, in possession of a map of Strasbourg and a video cassette showing the market. The four were convicted in Germany in March 2003 and received prison terms ranging from 10 to 12 years. The German court said the group had planned to blow up pressure cookers packed with explosives, a technique they learned in Afghan camps. The top suspects in Paris are Slimane Khalfaoui, 29, Yacine Akhnouche, 30, Rabah Kadri, 37 and Mohamed Bensakria, 37 -- considered one of bin Laden's lieutenants in Europe. Bensakria was extradited from Spain in the summer of 2001. Kadri was arrested in London in 2002 and remains in a British prison. He will be tried in absentia. The six other suspects are mostly alleged to have given logistical support to the plot, notably by supplying false papers to other members of the group.
Akhnouche denies participating in the plot but told investigators that he met Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in the Sept. 11 attacks. He also claimed to have crossed paths with Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosive-stuffed sneakers, and Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian convicted after bringing a carload of explosive into the United States in a plot to bomb Los Angeles' international airport. |