Germans convict 3 al Qaeda operatives

AP/IHT:

hree men were convicted Wednesday of aiding Al Qaeda in Germany - including one who prosecutors say was part of the terrorist network's command structure and had contact with top leaders.

Ibrahim Mohamed Khalil, 32, and Yasser abu Shaweesh, 34, were convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and multiple counts of fraud. Khalil was sentenced to seven years in prison, and Abu Shaweesh to six.

Ismail abu Shaweesh, 30, was convicted of the lesser charge of supporting a terrorist organization and fraud. He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison by the state court in Düsseldorf.

Khalil, who lived in Mainz, trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and fought U.S. forces in the country between October 2001 and July 2002, according to the indictment. He had contact with top leaders, including the Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, according to statements by prosecutors after the men were charged in 2005.

Khalil said he was a native of Mosul, Iraq, though prosecutors have said they believe he was born in Syria.

Al Qaeda leaders instructed him to set aside his initial intention to volunteer as a suicide bomber, prosecutors said, and sent him back to Germany to support the organization from there. According to the indictment, Khalil recruited the two Abu Shaweesh brothers.

The three were also convicted of fraud for what prosecutors presented as a scheme to raise money for Al Qaeda. Life insurance policies were taken out for Yasser abu Shaweesh, with his brother as beneficiary, with the intention of covering up the suicide attack by faking his death in a traffic accident in Egypt, the authorities said.

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I am curious how they planed to make a suicide attack look like a traffic accident. Doesn't that defeat the PR purpose of the attack? The case does give a bit of an inside look into al Qaeda's weird world. There is no indication of whether intercepts of communications were used in the investigation. One can surmise from the allegations of one being associated with the command structure that his conversations with al Qaeda leadership would have been of great interest.