STUTTGART: Three Iraqis went on trial in Germany on Tuesday charged with plotting to kill IraqÂ’s prime minister and belonging to a terrorist group. Prosecutors say Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid, Mazen Ali Hussein and Rafik Mohamad Yousef are members of Ansar al-Islam, an Iraqi insurgent group which the United States has linked to Al Qaeda, and that they conspired to assassinate then-premier Iyad Allawi when he visited Berlin in December 2004. They were arrested on the basis of intercepted phone calls in which Yousef was alleged to have sought the go-ahead to kill Allawi. When the others agreed, he drove through central Berlin to spy out a Deutsche Bank building where the Iraqi leader was due to hold a meeting the next day, according to the charges. Police arrested all three that night. | "Schtick 'em up! Sie sind unter arrest!" |
In a separate case, two other Iraqi men went on trial in Munich on Tuesday accused of providing logistical and financial support for Ansar al-Islam. The cases are part of a series of investigations into alleged links between European-based Islamists and insurgents trying to bring down the Baghdad government and drive US and coalition forces out of Iraq.