Posted on 10/26/2006 7:52:51 AM PDT by Valin
PARIS, Oct 26 (Reuters) - A French court on Thursday gave a nine year prison sentence to a Moroccan man accused of associating with hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, an official at the Paris prosecutors office said. Karim Mehdi was accused of "associating with wrongdoers in connection with a terrorist undertaking" -- a generic charge that in France covers a wide variety of criminal activity. The prosecution suspected that at the time of his arrest he was planning an attack on a tourist complex in France's Indian Ocean territory, La Reunion.
Police believed Mehdi knew Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, alleged coordinator of the 2001 operation, and Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker who took over the controls of the plane which ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania, killing 40 passengers and crew. Mehdi told the court that he had seen the pair, but only once, during a meeting with a friend. He denied knowing anything about their plans or having any ties to radical Islam.
He was arrested in June 2003 at a Paris airport after arriving on a plane from Germany en route to La Reunion. The official at the Paris prosecutors office said Mehdi would have to serve at least two-thirds of the sentence and that he would be expelled from France once he had served his time.
It's interesting so many of these terrorists have a German stamp on their passports.
And the German government has done nothing about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.