BERLIN: A German court yesterday jailed four men for up to nine years for plotting to detonate home-made bombs in a crowd on the orders of jihadist militant network Al Qaeda.
The “Duesseldorf cell”, named after the western city where three of the men lived, had planned the attack but not yet decided on a target, the court found.
The ring leader, Moroccan national Abdeladim El Kebir, 33, was sentenced to nine years in jail for planning the attack and being a member of a terrorist group. Prosecutors said Kebir had received orders from a senior Al Qaeda operative while at a weapons training camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
German police started monitoring his movements in early 2010 following a tip-off based on US intelligence. Police arrested three of the men in April 2011 in Duesseldorf and the fourth in December in Bochum after months of surveillance.
Prosecutors said the four men had been experimenting to build a bomb, which they hoped to detonate in a large crowd, to be followed by a second explosive device when emergency services arrived on the scene. German-Moroccan national Jamil Seddiki, 34, received seven years and German-Iranian Amid Chaabi, 23, five-and-a-half, also for membership in a terrorist group.
German Halil Simsek, 30, received a four-and-a-half year prison term at the end of the trial that lasted more than two years in Duesseldorf. AFP
