Free Republic

MILAN, Italy (AP) — An Italian judge indicted three North African men Thursday on charges of arms possession and supplying forged documents to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, a lawyer for one of the defendants said. Nabil Benattia of Tunisia, Yassine Chekkouri of Morocco and Abdelhalim Hafed Remadna of Algeria, were arrested in Milan in November in connection with an investigation of the city's mosque and Islamic cultural center. U.S. authorities have described the center as the main al-Qaida station house in Europe. Benattia's lawyer, Antonio Nebuloni, said all three suspects were indicted Thursday on charges of criminal association, possession...

FRANCE today confirmed that recent arrests made in two southern cities were connected to investigations into the al-Qaeda network, as three suspected members of a group close to Osama bin Laden's network went before an Italian court. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 21 radio that a series of recent arrests - eight in Lyon on Tuesday and one in Marseille last month - were connected to al-Qaeda. The eight arrested in Lyon are all family or friends of Nizar Nawar, who is believed to have carried out the April suicide attack on a synagogue in Tunisia. French police...