| Submit your comments on this article |
| International |
| Trabelsi Was Soccer Hopeful |
| 2002-07-06 |
| Sometime after moving from Tunisia to Europe to play professional soccer, Nizar Trabelsi got hooked on cocaine, messed up in petty crime and eventually made his way to al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan. There he could mingle with others with common backgrounds and interests... By the time Belgian police arrested him, two days after Sept. 11, in connection with a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris, Trabelsi had already placed himself on a "list of martyrs," according to evidence gleaned from intelligence and interrogations. Belgian authorities have sought to keep a lid on the Trabelsi case for nine months and decline to comment on their investigation. But Dutch, French and Belgian evidence on him was given to Canadian prosecutors handling an extradition case in June of another suspect in the Paris embassy plot. French investigators believe Trabelsi was to be the suicide bomber in the embassy attack, planned for the spring of 2002. Trabelsi's wife, Amal Halim, told French authorities her husband left Afghanistan for Europe intending to "commit a suicide action." Belgian sources say Trabelsi had other targets in mind, including an air base in Belgium where U.S. nuclear bombs are believed to be stored. Trabelsi told investigators he worked alone. but evidence has tied him to al-Qaida and other key suspects jailed in France and the Netherlands. He's a liar, and not even a particularly good one, as well as an intended killer. Wotta surprise... Spanish police say Trabelsi was in their country last August and may have met there with Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader in the Sept. 11 attacks. They also have tied Trabelsi to an Algerian Islamic insurgent group allegedly financed by bin Laden. Is there anyone Atta didn't meet with? British newspapers have reported that Trabelsi knew Richard C. Reid, charged with trying to blow up a Paris-Miami flight with explosives in his sneakers. And he was a very gregarious fellow, too... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |