| Submit your comments on this article | ||
| Europe | ||
| Trabelsi on trial | ||
| 2003-05-22 | ||
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.
| ||
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #2 Kleine Brogel used to be a major NATO exercise base for US aircraft in the UK. Complaints about noise, pollution, and nuclear weapons (which, to the best of my knowledge, are NOT based at Kleine Brogel - all US nukes are always in firm control of US forces) has forced the US to use other facilities. This made the Belgians unhappy, because the flow of money dried up (these people don't understand 'cause' and 'effect' either). Today, Kleine Brogel is best known for housing the Belgian Air Force's precision air team, the "Slivers". I'm all for even further withdrawing from Belgium, the tiny tot in the Axis of Weasels. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-05-22 20:13:52 |
| #1 The group was Takfir wal Hijra |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-05-22 18:37:52 |