A 36-year-old Kurd who collected funds for the Iraqi terrorist group Ansar al-Islam was jailed for five-and-a-half years by a court in Munich on Monday. The man was convicted of supporting a foreign terrorist organization and violating Germany's foreign trade laws, the court said in a statement.
| The accused was said to have links to the leader of a trio on trial for plotting to kill former Iraqi premier Allawi during a visit to Berlin. |
The accused was said to have links to the leader of a trio currently on trial in Stuttgart for plotting to kill former Iraqi premier Ayad Allawi during a visit to Berlin in December 2004. The three were arrested beforehand after police tapped their phones. Allawi visited Germany for talks on aid for his country. He failed to win re-election after his party performed badly in 2005 polls.
Germany changed its law after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to make it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail for persons on German soil to belong to a foreign terror group. Prosecutors say Ansar al-Islam has a fund-raising and recruitment network in Western Europe. |