Al-Qaeda suspect to go on trial in Germany next month

Jun 19, 2007, 19:55 GMT

Schleswig, Germany - A Moroccan-born German national is to go on trial next month on charges of supporting terrorism, court officials in the northern city of Schleswig said Tuesday.

Redouane e-H, 37, is accused of recruiting people willing to become suicide bombers in Iraq and of maintaining contact with one of the alleged al-Qaeda plotters in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

A superior state court in Schleswig had formally accepted the case, based on the April indictment, a court spokesman, Michael Lautebach, said Tuesday. The trial would most likely begin in Schleswig on July 18.

E-H, who had been attending the University of Kiel in the north of Germany for many years, was arrested at a railway station in July 2006. He allegedly acted as a mail drop for Said Bahaji, described by German police as one of eight plotters in the Hamburg 9/11 cell.

Prosecutors said they would tell judges that e-H was in touch with a network of al-Qaeda-aligned, violent Islamists in Syria, Algeria, Iraq and other nations.

Judges would be told how he remitted 5,000 euros to Egypt and Syria to buy equipment for 'mujahedin,' pay for explosives training and as a fee for a people smuggler.

Police earlier said that he himself had attended a course run by a terrorist group in 2005 to learn how to use explosives.