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2003-06-07 Europe
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Moroccan held in Paris was planning new attack
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PARIS - A Moroccan detained in France on suspicion of having links to the group that carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States was planning a new attack on a tourism complex in the French Indian Ocean territory of Reunion, a judicial source said Thursday. Karim Mehdi, 34, was arrested by the DST intelligence services at Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport on Sunday while he in transit on a flight from Germany to Reunion. The following day, Christian Ganczarski, a 36-year-old German who was close to Mehdi, was arrested at the same airport. Mehdi admitted to investigators that he was going to Reunion to plan an attack on a resort on the island, a popular tourist destination.
After being held for the maximum four days without charge permitted under French law, he was taken before a top anti-terrorist prosecutor late on Thursday. The judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, charged him with being part of a "criminal conspiracy in relation to terrorist activities." Sources close to the investigation said earlier that Mehdi had admitted to having links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, in particular to a group of Islamic extremists in the German city of Hamburg. The so-called Hamburg cell included several of the people who hijacked four US passenger planes on September 11. Mehdi is the first person to be arrested in France in connection with the September 11 attacks. The sources said he had had training in Afghanistan and Bosnia. He was said to be close to Ziad Jarrah, a member of the Hamburg cell who died on board the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania. Mehdi's arrest could enable investigators to make a formal link between the Hamburg cell and an attack on a synagogue on Jerba in Tunisia on April 11 last year which killed 21 people including 14 German tourists. 
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Posted by Fred Pruitt 2003-06-07 11:07 pm||
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