The Assyrian Democratic Organization
Stuttgart – DPA — An Iraqi Kurd who transferred thousands of euros to bombers in Iraq was jailed in Germany Wednesday for two and a half years under a tough new policy of catching second-line supporters of terrorism. At the same time, a trial date was set for a Lebanese student arrested after for a bungled attempt to set off a bomb last summer on a German passenger train.
The state superior court in the southern city of Stuttgart convicted Burhan B aged 37 of supporting a foreign terrorist organization by performing a money transfer. He sent 12,500 euros (17,625 dollars at current rates) to Ansar al-Islam, a violent group of Kurdish Islamists which is reported to have attacked girls’ schools and Kurdish authorities. B partly admitted the allegations.
Germany has moved in the recent years beyond prosecuting main plotters to catching people who do lesser services for Islamist terrorism such as raising funds or encouraging the radicals. In the northern city of Celle, an Iraqi-born man who has been in custody since October went on trial Wednesday for supporting a foreign terrorist group, al-Qaeda, by copying its propaganda into new parts of the internet.
His lawyer, Karl Ruether, told the state superior court that the defendant, 36, would refrain from testifying for the time being. Ruether said the case covered new legal ground, since the 36-year- old defendant was solely charged with actions on the internet. ‘He is alleged to have quoted speeches by members of terrorist groups, not to have passed on instructions on how to make bombs,’ he said.
Last year the man’s wife in the town of Georgsmarienhuette told reporters she was not aware of what her husband had done while he used the internet at their home. Prosecutors say he found messages by Osama bin Laden and other terrorists on one part of the internet and cut and pasted them into forum pages elsewhere. The trial in Dusseldorf of Youssef al-Hajib, 23, on charges of attempted multiple murder and an attempt to cause an explosion will begin on December 18, state superior court officials in that city said.
He and another Islamist Lebanese are alleged to have planted bombs hidden in suitcases on two German trains on July 31, 2006. Neither bomb exploded. Police say the bombers made an error in their construction. The other alleged bomber is on trial in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
