Posted on 03/10/2003 12:11:34 PM PST by knighthawk
An Algerian who sought asylum in Sheffield has been jailed for plotting to bomb tourists at a French Christmas market.
Lamine Maroni has been sentenced to 11 years in Germany.
Three other men were also jailed for between 10 and 12 years each.
They were found guilty by a Frankfurt court of conspiracy to murder scores of people outside Strasbourg Cathedral on New Year's Eve 2000.
Prosecutors said they were part of a network of mostly North African extremists called the Non-aligned Mujahadeen, with ties to al-Qaida.
Maroni had arrived in Sheffield as an asylum seeker in August 2000 and claimed to be an odd job man.
He spent most of his time alone in his dingy bedsit and rarely mixed with his fellow asylum seekers.
In November of that year he used a forged or stolen British passport to move to Frankfurt.
Once in Germany, he and the other conspirators collected 44 lbs of the basic ingredients for a bomb.
Investigators believe the cell planned to detonate at least one, maybe more, devices made from pressure cookers packed with nails and explosives in the middle of the bustling market.
Couldn't they just put him in prison?
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