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Europe

Verdict due for Lebanese in German train bomb plot

2008-12-07

A verdict is due Tuesday in the trial of a Lebanese man accused of a botched attempt to bomb German passenger trains that investigators say could have ended in a bloodbath. German authorities say Yusef Mohammed al-Hajj Dib, 24, was a hardened Islamic extremist who was trying to kill as many people as possible in revenge for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in Europe. Men identified by police as Dib and a Lebanese associate, Jihad Hamad, were captured on security cameras placing suitcases packed with homemade explosives on two trains carrying 280 people on July 31, 2006. The images ran in heavy rotation on national television as the country digested how close it may have come to the first Islamist attack on German soil since the anti-US suicide hijackings of September 11, 2001, which were planned in part in the German port city Hamburg. ‘Germany was never closer to an Islamist attack,’ state prosecutor Duscha Gmel said. Prosecutors argue that the explosions could have killed up to 75 people, saying only a technical fault prevented a massacre in a plot allegedly modelled on the deadly train blasts in Madrid in 2004 and London the following year. Dib could face life in prison, generally 15 years in actual jail time in Germany, if he is convicted on multiple counts of attempted murder. He told the regional superior court in this western city on December 2 at the end of his year-long trial that he had never planned to murder anyone but had aimed to frighten the German public over the Mohammed cartoons. ‘I swear by God Almighty that it was never my intention to kill,’ he said in a final statement to the court, adding that he knew ‘there would be no explosion’ when he left the device on the train. He said Hamad, who is serving a 12-year sentence in Beirut over the case, was lying when he told Lebanese investigators that the two had plotted mass murder. ‘It is because he was tortured,’ Dib asserted. Both men had lived as students in Germany. After putting the suitcases on the trains, they each disembarked at the next station and flew from Cologne to Istanbul and then Lebanon, where Hamad was captured. Dib was arrested after he returned to Germany days later. His defence lawyer Bernd Rosenkranz told the court that Dib had made a conscious decision not to include oxygen in gas canisters used in the homemade bombs—the missing ingredient necessary for an explosion. ‘The aim was to frighten people with a mock-up,’ he said. Presiding judge Ottmar Breidling expressed doubts about this version of events in a hearing in late October, noting that dummy explosives would have no need for detonators, as were found in the suitcases on the trains.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanese prison riot ends peacefully

2008-04-25

A mutiny at Lebanon's largest prison ended peacefully on Friday after prisoners took seven prison guards hostage, a Lebanese police statement said. "The prisoners handed over the seven warders they were holding hostage and returned to their cells after having negotiated and handed over demands to the chief of internal security, Antoine Shakuri," the statement said. The prisoners, were calling for an improvement in their prison conditions and a pony reduction in their sentences, a Lebanese security source said. Most of the inmates, who were mainly Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians, were serving long sentences, or were on death row. The prisoners had set fire to their cells before they took hostages. Four senior security officials arrested on suspicion of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri are presently interned in Roumieh. Jihad Hamad, one of the prime suspects in Germany's 2006 train-bombing plot, is also imprisoned there.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas rockets 'aimed at truce'

2008-02-13

Hamas's decision to renew rocket and mortar attacks on Israel could be aimed at securing a truce rather than a wider confrontation, said analysts on Tuesday. The Klondike Bar I had for dessert tonight was really to tighten my waistline, too. Naji Shirab, professor of political science at al-Azhar University in Gaza, said: "With the escalation of rocket fire Hamas is aiming to push Israel towards a truce, not a confrontation. I think Israel is not set on a wide operation in Gaza, but wants the rockets to stop and for there to be a truce," he said, adding that Hamas was the only power in Gaza capable of controlling the restive territory. The Islamist movement insists that the attacks on southern Israeli towns and military positions constitute "legitimate resistance" against Israeli assaults on the Palestinian territory. Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhum said: "We want there to be a balance of terror in order to rein in (Israeli) aggression." Hamas resumed rocket attacks on January 15, after an Israeli incursion killed 19 Gazans, most of them militants. Hamas had previously halted fire for several months. Repeated ceasefire calls "The pressure from Sderot (a town frequently targeted) on the Israeli government comes from the strikes and the resistance," said Barhum. Israeli leaders have faced mounting calls for a wider military operation in Gaza to snuff out the attacks. On Tuesday, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israeli forces would do whatever was necessary. "There are reasons why we are not using all our force right now, but it will happen at the right moment," said Barak, without elaborating. Ahmed Yussef, a Hamas foreign policy advisor, on Tuesday reiterated calls for a ceasefire, blaming Israel for the continuing violence in an article written for the Israeli daily, Haaretz. "If the people of Sderot want to know why rockets continue to land around them, they should ask their own government why it has continually rejected our calls for a ceasefire and continued its policy of daily incursions and reckless targeting that put the whole population at risk," he wrote. He said Hamas was not aiming for a wider confrontation, but had a "political vision aimed at achieving a long truce". Heavy-handed policies "If there were a sincere Israeli movement towards a truce, in terms of easing the siege and opening the crossings and allowing freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza, that would be the basis," said Yussef. But "if Israel continues with its heavy-handed policies, the confrontation will remain open and the conflict will continue," he said, adding that Hamas was not seeking direct talks with Israel. However, some analysts believe Hamas may be looking for a third party to act as midwife to some kind of agreement, perhaps involving the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized in June 2006 in a deadly cross-border raid. "Hamas knows Israel has plans prepared to eliminate it and this pushes it to look for another party like Egypt to arrive at a real calm," said Jihad Hamad, another Gaza-based professor. "There will be great pressure on Hamas in the coming weeks," Hamad said. "Hamas will try to achieve a period of calm and maybe even give positions back to the Palestinian Authority." When Hamas seized power in Gaza in June after routing forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, it divided the Palestinian territories, confining Abbas's authority to the West Bank. Unilateral ceasefire But even if Hamas were to patch up its relations with the Palestinian Authority and agree to halt attacks, it is not clear whether it would be willing or able to rein in other, smaller groups. At various times, Hamas has observed a unilateral ceasefire in which it halted all attacks on the Jewish state, but it has never done much to encourage groups like Islamic Jihad and others to go along. The reluctance to crack down on other groups is rooted in Hamas's core belief that armed resistance is the only way to end the Israeli occupation.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon sentences two over Germany bomb plot

2007-12-19

A Beirut court sentenced a Lebanese man to life in prison and another to 12 years on Tuesday for their roles in a failed attempt to detonate bombs on German trains in 2006, judicial sources said. One of the two, Youssef al-Haj Deeb, was sentenced in absentia to life in prison - a reduction from an earlier death penalty. He is being held in Germany, where he faces a separate trial that began on Tuesday. Jihad Hamad was handed a 12-year sentence in Beirut. Both were convicted of attempted mass murder. Three other men on trial in Beirut were declared innocent. The German federal prosecutor’s office says Hamad, 22, and Haj Deeb, 23, took suitcases containing propane gas tanks and crude detonators onto two trains in July 2006 heading from Cologne - one to Koblenz and the other to Dortmund. The bombs failed to go off due to technical errors, but they would have caused a significant number of deaths had they exploded, German prosecutors have said. Hamad, who turned himself in to Lebanese authorities in August 2006, had confessed to his role in the plot but claims it was meant to create fear rather than kill, his lawyer has said.

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Europe

Lebanese Man Stands Trial in Germany on Terrorism Charges

2007-12-17

A Lebanese man will go on trial in Duesseldorf Tuesday on charges of attempted murder over a botched bombing plot against commuter trains in Germany. The 23-year-old defendant, Yousef Mohammed al-Hajj Dib, is one of two men prosecutors believe placed suitcases containing homemade explosives on two trains as they passed through the western city of Cologne in July last year. The devices failed to detonate, averting an almost certain bloodbath in what German officials said was a bid to copy the train blasts in Madrid and London. "A detonation would have in both cases led to a significant wave of pressure; lighter fluid in the 'bomb trolleys' could have set off a fireball," prosecutors said in the charge sheet. Dib could face life in prison. He has maintained his silence in police questioning. A charge of belonging to a terrorist organization that was originally considered against him has been dropped because German investigators do not have a third suspect in the case -- a requirement under the legal definition of a terror group. The second suspect, fellow Lebanese national Jihad Hamad, has been on trial since April in Beirut. Hamad has told German television that they were seeking revenge for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers. Prosecutors say they were also angered by the killing last year by the U.S. military of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Al-Qaida leader in Iraq. The suspects were identified using footage from security cameras at the Cologne rail station, which captured the image of two men placing heavy suitcases on trains then leaving the station. The defendants later flew to Istanbul then Damascus before crossing the border into Lebanon. Dib returned to Germany in August to resume his studies but was picked up by police days later at the rail station in the northern city of Kiel thanks to a tip provided to authorities by the Lebanese secret services. Five days later, Hamad turned himself in to police in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Authorities have warned that Islamic extremists have Germany in their sights, noting that good luck and effective police work had only just thwarted a number of attacks. The latest involved three men arrested in September as they were allegedly preparing to make bombs to launch "massive" attacks on the U.S. Ramstein airbase and U.S. and Uzbek consulates. A fourth suspect was picked up in Turkey. Prosecutors said the men were members of the Islamic Jihad Union, a group with links to Al-Qaida and has its roots in Uzbekistan.(

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Man Says He Planted German Train Bombs

2007-10-12

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - A Lebanese man on trial for a failed train bombing in Germany last year testified Thursday that he and another suspect planted crude bombs to protest cartoons that ridiculed Islam's prophet Muhammad, but he denied any links to al-Qaida. Reports of the trial, carried by the state-run National News Agency, said Jihad Hamad told the court he and fellow suspect Youssef el-Hajdib, who is under arrest in Germany, bought gas canisters, fitted them with detonators, tested them and planted them on the trains. In a civilized country that would be enough to have him jugged for decades. Even in Y'urp he'd get his full ten years. We'll see what happens in Lebanon, but I'm not optimistic. He also said he was not a militant Muslim and had no links to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terror organization. "No, no, certainly not!" In addition to Hamad, three other suspects are standing trial in Beirut. Germany wants the men extradited, but there is no extradition treaty between the nations. Lebanon has decided to try the suspects and defer consideration of extradition. Lebanese authorities had arrested the suspects on charges of allegedly planting crude bombs on two trains at the Cologne station on July 31, 2006. The bombs, found later in the day on trains at the Koblenz and Dortmund stations, failed to explode because of faulty detonators. German surveillance cameras are said to have filmed the suspects as they wheeled suitcases into the station. The other three on trial in Beirut - Khaled Khair-Eddin el-Hajdib, Ayman Hawa and Khalil al-Boubou, all are Lebanese - denied involvement in the failed attack. El-Hajdib and Hawa said they knew Hamad from university. They both denied to the court any links to Al-Qaida or bin Laden or that they were militants, according to the agency. "Lies! All lies!"

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon arrests another suspect as Germany foils massive terrorist campaign

2007-09-06

Lebanese authorities have arrested a fourth suspect in connection with a plan to bomb two trains in Germany, and have filed preliminary charges against five Lebanese and a Syrian, judicial sources said on Saturday. Four of the Lebanese are in Lebanese custody, while one Lebanese and the Syrian are in Germany, they added. They face charges of attempted mass murder in passenger trains in Germany and attempted arson, they said. The sources named the fourth suspect as Khalil al-Bubbu but gave no details of his arrest. The others are Jihad Hamad, Khaled Kheireddin al-Hajj, Ayman Hawa, Youssef al-Hajj and Fadi al-Saleh, the Syrian. The last two are in Germany. The latest legal step falls short of the formal indictment process, which comes at a later stage, and the investigations could turn up other suspects, the sources said. Germany Uncovers Terror Plot Germany said Wednesday it had foiled a "massive" terrorist attack with the arrest of three Islamist extremists who were targeting airports, bars and discotheques frequented by Americans. Six other people are standing trial in Lebanon on similar charges. The men, two Germans and a Turk aged 22, 28 and 29, had amassed vast amounts of hydrogen peroxide, the same chemical used by suicide bombers in the 2005 attacks on London's transport system which killed 56 people, Harms said. The chemicals had been stockpiled in a town in the Black Forest. Arrested on Tuesday, the men allegedly belonged to an organization with ties to Al-Qaida called Crimson Jihad Islamic Jihad Union, which German authorities have suspected for several months of planning attacks. One of the three suspects was arrested for spying on a U.S. military base in December but was released soon afterwards, federal police Chief Joerg Ziercke said. All three men had attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2006. German federal prosecutors in June charged a suspected mastermind behind a failed plot to bomb two passenger trains using bombs packed in suitcases last year which failed to explode because of faulty detonators. Six Lebanese men are currently standing trial in Lebanon over the plot, which targeted trains in western Germany. Hard Labor in Lebanon The Lebanese authorities arrested Ayman Hawa on Aug. 28 based on information provided by Hamad and Khaled al-Hajj. Hawa is in his 20s and from the northern town of Akkar. Hamad, a 20-year-old student, turned himself in to authorities earlier and confessed to planting a suitcase bomb. Investigations suggested he might have links with al Qaeda. Youssef al-Hajj, 21, was identified in Germany on security camera footage that appeared to show him dragging a suitcase into a train in Cologne in July. Suitcases like those in the footage were found packed with propane gas tanks and crude detonating devices on trains in Dortmund and Koblenz. A German newspaper said on Friday the two failed attempts had originally been planned for the football World Cup. The Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung cited security sources as saying interrogation of the suspects had established that the would-be bombers had abandoned the original plan as they had considered the implications of such an attack. Under Lebanese law, the charges could carry a penalty of life imprisonment with hard labour.

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Europe

Germany indicts Lebanese man for bomb attempt

2007-06-23

Germany's federal prosecutor has indicted for attempted murder a Lebanese man who is accused of planting terrorist bombs a year ago on German trains, officials said Wednesday. Police say neither of the bombs exploded because of inshallah circuitry a mistake in their construction. Both Lebanese Moslem suspects were seen on closed-circuit TV carrying booby-trapped suitcases into trains and were caught within weeks. The trial of the other man has already begun in Lebanon. The 22-year-old Lebanese is the prime suspect in what was an apparent attempt to explode suitcase time-bombs on two regional trains on July 31, 2006. He and Jihad Hamad, a compatriot now on trial in Lebanon, were filmed at Cologne station with suitcases. The suitcases were left behind seats of trains. Al-Haijib left the train near Bonn as it continued towards the city of Koblenz. The timer and detonator went off, but not the main explosive. The bag was later handed in as lost property. Had the camping gas and spirit exploded, the bombs would have created a massive fireball which would have badly damaged the trains and likely have caused many deaths, German prosecutors said. The indictment will charge that al-Haijib and Hamad, who were living in Germany, decided in April 2006 to harm their host country in protest at publication by newspapers of cartoons they believed were insulting to the Prophet Mohammed. Capitalized without a moment's hesitation. Nice work DPA. In Beirut, Hamad has admitted the plot to German and Lebanese police, "Put those away! I'll talk!!!" prosecutors say, whereas al-Haijib, who is being held in a Berlin jail, refuses to answer questions. Lawyers said there was no accusation of forming a terrorist organization because under German law, at least three persons were needed to constitute such a group. Gah. Police have investigated two other men, but have not found sufficient evidence to charge them.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Trial begins in Lebanon for German bomb plot

2007-04-12

A Beirut court on Wednesday adjourned for one week the trial of four Lebanese men accused of participating in a failed train bombing in Germany, court officials said. Meanwhile, Lebanon's top military magistrate Rashid Mezher issued formal arrest warrants Wednesday for 14 people suspected of belonging to al-Qaida. The four train bombing suspects appeared before Judge Michel Abu Arraj for just 10 minutes before the hearing was adjourned until April 18 at the request of the suspects' defense attorney. Court officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the attorney asked to move the trial from Beirut to northern Lebanon, arguing that the suspects' families couldn't afford transportation to Beirut for the trial. Lebanese authorities arrested the suspects on charges of planting crude bombs on two trains at the Cologne station on July 31. The bombs, found later in the day on trains at the Koblenz and Dortmund stations, failed to explode because of faulty detonators. German surveillance cameras are said to have filmed the suspects as they wheeled suitcases into the station. The suspects include Jihad Hamad, Ayman Hawa, Khalil al-Boubou and Khaled Khair-Eddin el-Hajdib, whose brother Youssef is under arrest in Germany in connection with the case. Last month, Hamad, 19, confessed to planting one of the bombs. During preliminary interrogation by Judge Abu Arraj, Hamad said he was trying to avenge the publication of 12 cartoons that satirized the Prophet Muhammad. Hamad, who is from the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, told the judge that his aim was not to kill, but to defend Islam, according to court officials. The head of Germany's Federal Crime Office, Joerg Ziercke, has said that the train-bomb suspects were also motivated by the June 7 killing of the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a U.S. airstrike. Germany wants to extradite the suspects, but there is no extradition treaty between Germany and Lebanon. Lebanon has decided to try the suspects in its courts and defer consideration of extradition until later. Also on Wednesday, arrest warrants were issued for 14 suspected al-Qaida members — nine Lebanese, a Saudi, a Syrian and a Palestinian held in police custody for more than a month, and two Lebanese at large — accused of carrying out terrorist acts, attacking people and weakening state authority, court officials said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanese Suspect Testifies to Planting Bomb on German Train

2007-03-05

A Lebanese citizen testified to judicial interrogators Monday to planting one of the bombs used in last year's abortive attempt to blow up two German trains, a judicial official in Beirut said. The suspect, Jihad Hamad, told an investigating magistrate that he was trying to avenge the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, the official said. Lebanese authorities arrested Hamad and three other suspects on charges of planting bombs on two trains at Cologne station on July 31. German surveillance cameras are reported to have filmed the suspects as they pulled wheeled suitcases in the station. The bombs were found later that day on trains at Koblenz and Dortmund stations. Their detonators went off but failed to ignite the explosives. On Monday, police took the four suspects under heavy security from Roumieh prison east of the Lebanese capital to the Justice Palace in central Beirut, where they underwent preliminary interrogation by Judge Michel Abu Arraj. Hamad, who hails from the northern city of Tripoli, told the judge that his aim was not to kill but to defend Islam, the official said. He said he was retaliating for the publication of 12 cartoons that satirized the Prophet Muhammad. One of the drawings, which were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, showed the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb. The cartoons, which were republished in German and other European papers, sparked outrage across the Muslim world. The head of Germany's Federal Crime Office, Joerg Ziercke, has said that the train-bomb suspects were also motivated by the June 7 killing of al-Qaida leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. airstrike. No date for Hamad's trial has been set. The three other suspects in custody are Ayman Hawa, Khalil al-Boubou and Khaled Khair-Eddin el-Hajdib, whose brother Youssef is under arrest in Germany in connection with the case. German officials have also arrested a 23-year-old Syrian, Fadi al-Saleh, on suspicion that he did research on the Internet to prepare the bombings. Germany wants to extradite the suspects, but there is no extradition treaty between the European country and Lebanon. Lebanon has decided to try the suspects in its courts, as they were arrested on its territory, and defer consideration of extradition until later.(AP-Naharnet)

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Europe

German prosecutors order release of suspect in failed train bombings

2006-09-15

German prosecutors on Thursday ordered the release of a Syrian man accused of helping two Lebanese men in a failed plot to blow up two trains, citing lack of evidence. Fadi al-Saleh, 23, was detained in southern Germany on allegations he did Internet research in preparation for the failed July 31 bombings. Though prosecutors said their investigation continued, they said in a statement that there was not enough evidence — including through the questioning in Lebanon of prime suspect Jihad Hamad — to hold al-Saleh any longer. "Further investigation, in particular questioning of Jihad H. — a fellow suspect arrested in Lebanon — did not the strengthen the suspicions against him in such as to justify keeping him in pretrial confinement," prosecutors said in a statement. Hamad, 20, along with Youssef Mohammed el-Hajdib, 21, are accused of planting bombs on July 31 in two trains at a railway station in the German city of Cologne. The pair were seen in grainy surveillance camera footage pulling wheeled suitcases. The bombs were found later in the day on regional trains, and authorities said that the detonators went off but failed to ignite the devices. El-Hajdib was arrested last month in Germany while Hamad was picked up in Lebanon along with three other subjects. Al-Saleh was arrested in the German city of Konstanz. All six have been charged by Lebanese prosecutors with attempting to kill a large number of people in the failed train attacks.

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Europe

Germany train bomb suspects charged in Leb

2006-09-03

Lebanon charged five suspects with attempted murder and arson in connection with a plot to bomb German trains in late July. Three of them, all Lebanese, were arrested in Lebanon while one Lebanese and one Syrian are being detained in Germany. They face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. German federal police said Saturday that the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Western and some Arab media had been the "detonator" which pushed the alleged terrorists to organize a plot to bomb German trains on July 31. The plan failed when bombs hidden on two regional trains did not explode due to faulty detonators. One of the suspects, Yusef Mohammed al-Hajj Dib, who was arrested in Germany on August 16, "interpreted (the caricatures) as an affront to Islam by the Western world," federal police chief Jorg Ziercke told the German Focus Online magazine in an interview to be published Monday. He and another suspect, Jihad Hamad, who was arrested on August 24 in Lebanon, are the two main suspects. Ziercke said they were influenced by the late Al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. According to the German newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the investigation found that the suspected terrorists initially wanted to strike during the World Cup football chamionship from June 9 to July 9. They changed their minds due to the risks and repercussions their act could have triggered, according to the newspaper. Lebanon's general prosecutor Said Mirza has opposed transferring Lebanese suspects to Germany. They are "Lebanese citizens, their trial needs to take place here and they must serve here any sentence they may be given," he said.

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