BRUSSELS: Belgian investigators will travel to Morocco soon to examine whether some of a group of Islamists arrested there this week were involved in six unsolved murders in Belgium in the late 1980s.
Four of 32 people detained in what Moroccan security forces said was the break-up of a terrorist network live or have lived in Belgium and may have had a hand in the murders, Belgian prosecutors said. Belgian authorities received information from Morocco containing summaries of confessions, prosecution spokeswoman Lieve Pellens said.
It is only a summary, but we are very interested, Pellens said, adding Belgian investigators hoped eventually to speak with the detainees. Belgian media reported the suspects are wanted in connection with two murders in particular of a moderate Imam and of a Jewish doctor, both in Brussels in 1989. Pellens declined to give details, but said the murders took place between 1985 and 1989.
Moroccan terror ring raised funds ‘with European thefts’
Friday, February 22nd, 2008
PARIS - Morocco’s government said it has dismantled a terrorist network that raised funds through holdups in Europe and plotted to assassinate Cabinet ministers and members of the North African kingdom’s Jewish community.
Morocco has also banned an Islamist political party, Al Badil Al Hadari, because some members were linked to the network, Morocco’s official MAP news agency reported Wednesday night, citing the interior minister.
Moroccan newspapers said police arrested a total of 32 people in sweeps this week. Authorities discovered stashes of weapons while dismantling the network, which they believe has links to Al Qaeda and local terror groups, MAP said. The group’s suspected leader, Abdel Qader Belliraj, is accused in six assassinations in Belgium from 1986 to 1989, MAP said, quoting Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa. It was not clear from the report which assassinations he was referring to.
Excerpted
Terrorist financing.
Thanks Oorang.
blog:
http://www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2008/02/crime-does-pay.html
“Crime does pay — for terrorism”
Posted by David Nordell on February 22, 2008 at 00:41