Posted on 10/30/2003 10:50:31 AM PST by knighthawk
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden told his followers in early 2000 to "pray for your brothers" because an attack was in the offing, a witness told a German court on Wednesday.
Shadi Abdellah, who claims to have been briefly a bodyguard for Bin Laden, said he heard the Al-Qaeda mastermind speak while he was undergoing military training at a camp in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, in spring 2000.
"Pray for your brothers, there will be an attack," he quoted Bin Laden as saying.
Abdellah said it was not explained when, where or how the attack would take place.
Al-Qaeda is blamed for the September 11, 2001 suicide plane hijackings in the United States which killed more than 3,000 people.
Bin Laden's words could also be taken to refer to an October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen which killed 17 sailors.
Abdellah was giving evidence in the trial in Hamburg, northern Germany, of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan accused of accessory to murder and membership of a terrorist organisation in connection with the September 11 attacks.
Abdellah, who is under a state witness protection programme, appeared as a prosecution witness in a wig and glasses and was surrounded by police.
The 27-year-old Jordanian of Palestinian origin is himself already on trial in the western German city of Duesseldorf, where he has admitted being part of a cell that planned attacks against Jewish targets in Germany.
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