Sweden extradites Islamist to Germany (Roundup)

Apr 5, 2007, 17:35 GMT

Karlsruhe, Germany - Sweden has extradited a 32-year-old Islamist, Thaer A, to Germany on charges that he is the chief fund- raiser of a new terrorist group planning to operate in Sudan, German prosecutors said Thursday.

A, who is Jordanian, was arrested March 19 in Sweden and flown to Germany on Wednesday. A German federal magistrate remanded him in custody the following day.

Investigators say he is one of five founders of the new group, set up at the bidding of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, and was appointed to organize money transfers.

Germany arrested another founder, Redouane e-H, last July on separate charges of recruiting in Europe for a Qaeda-linked group mounting terrorist attacks in Iraq.

They believe e-H was an associate of the plotters of the September 11, 2001 attacks too.

A 36-year-old man of Moroccan origin who lived in Kiel, northern Germany until his arrest, e-H is alleged to have transmitted messages to Said Bahaji, one of the eight alleged 9-11 plotters from Hamburg. Bahaji is at large.

The Swedes are holding a third alleged founder, a 24-year-old Moroccan, but he has appealed against extradition and cannot be moved before a verdict is reached. Police did not name the group.

German police were monitoring the men online as they plotted in an internet chat room last June and July, the prosecutor's office said. It is a crime in Germany to set up a terrorist group, even if it does not attack Germany.

The five aimed to open a new 'front' in Sudan to wage jihad or holy war against 'Crusaders,' an Islamist term for what are perceived as threatening western nations.

E-H, who has contacts in Syria, Algeria and Iraq, was the communications officer of the group, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile fresh details emerged about an Islamist attempt last year to blow up two German trains, with a claim that there may have been a third plotter with al-Qaeda links.

Previously it was thought the July 31 plot, which failed when the bombs did not explode, was a 'freelance' attack by two Lebanese students who were arrested soon after.

The news magazine Der Spiegel said it would appear Saturday with a report that the two set the bombs as an initiation test for Khaled Ibrahim al-Hajdib, the Sweden-based brother of one of the accused.

One of the men, Jihad Hamad, goes on trial in Beirut next week. The other, Youssef al-Hajdib, is in custody in Germany and likely to be indicted this summer.

The magazine said Youssef al-Hajdib used the term 'initiation test' in an e-mail. Both students had hoped to go to Iraq to fight.

Spiegel said Swedish investigators believe Ibrahim was recruiting fighters for Iraq and fund-raising. German prosecutors believed he might have known of the plot or have even commissioned it.

It said had been arrested in Lebanon, where 'sources' linked him to al-Qaeda. Spiegel said Ibrahim had prepared a will, found in his younger brother's German lodgings, in which he termed himself a mujahid, or jihad warrior.

Spiegel said Hamad had said in a jail interview that the plot had been a mistake and he thanked God the suitcase bombs had not exploded on the two German cross-country trains.