Posted on 06/24/2004 11:17:43 AM PDT by knighthawk
Dutch police have arrested a Muslim extremist who was sentenced on Monday to six years in prison in absentia.
The 29-year-old French citizen Jerome Courtailler, a convert to Islam, turned himself in to police on Thursday. A court in The Hague had found him guilty of planning to attack the US embassy in Paris.
Three other Muslim extremists also received jail sentences. It was the first time that a Dutch court has sentenced Muslim extremists on charges of terrorism.
Dutch court convicts two Muslim terrorists
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1157401/posts
Suprise, suprise. I hope the Netherlands is waking up to a fate that the French resigned themselves to long ago...
"Muslim extremist"
Kind of an oxy-moron dont you think?
Not exactly. I think you mean redundancy.
Dutch jail Frenchman for plot on U.S. targets
Convert to Islam is sentenced to 6 years
THE HAGUE A Frenchman surrendered to the police Thursday after having been sentenced in absentia to six years in prison for belonging to a group that plotted terror attacks on U.S. targets in France and Belgium.
The Dutch public prosecutor's office said that the convicted man, Jerome Courtailler, a French covert to Islam, surrendered in Rotterdam following his conviction this week.
On Monday, a Dutch appeals court convicted Courtailler and Abdelghani Rabia, an Algerian, of having belonged to "an international criminal organization whose purpose was to commit terrorist attacks."
Both men were deported from the Netherlands in December 2002 after being acquitted by a lower court of charges of belonging to a Europe-wide Islamic militant network.
That network had been accused of plotting attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Paris, an American military base in Belgium and other American targets.
The judges at the lower court had ruled that evidence found in a search of the suspects' houses was not admissible. The court ruled against the government because the searches were based on information by the Dutch intelligence services that could not be verified.
But the appeals court ruled that information from the intelligence services could be admitted as evidence if it gave rise to reasonable suspicion, was obtained legally and was accurate.
The appeals court reversed the acquittal and sentenced the two men - six years in prison for Courtailler and four years for Rabia.
Rabia is currently thought to be in Algeria. It was not clear where Courtailler was before he surrendered to the authorities.
The judges said there was insufficient proof that the men had "themselves actually prepared attacks or were accomplices to such preparation."
According to prosecutors, Courtailler, Rabia and two others made money for the international terrorist network through credit card fraud and selling fake designer clothes.
They also were accused of faking identification documents that could be used in future attacks.
Courtailler's lawyers have said that they will appeal to the Dutch Supreme Court. A spokeswoman for the prosecution, Thea Tjeerdema, said the judges had ordered that Courtailler remains in prison during the appeal.
AFP
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