"We volunteered to attack US in Europe," says German terror suspect

Aug 10, 2009, 13:44 GMT

Berlin - The lead suspect in one of Germany's largest terrorism trials since the 1970s told a court Monday of how he had travelled to Pakistan for training and volunteered to attack US interests in Europe.

Fritz Gelowicz, 29, a German-born convert to Islam and the suspected leader of the so-called Sauerland Group, gave an extensive confession for the court in Dusseldorf as part of a sentence- reducing deal with prosecutors.

'In al-Qaeda there were no Europeans that could have carried out attacks in Europe. We declared ourselves ready, because there was no- one else,' Gelowicz said.

The Sauerland Group, consisting of Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider, Adem Yilmaz and Attila Selek, are accused of planning attacks on US military bases in 2007.

The four made a dramatic decision in June to give extensive confessions in return for reduced sentences, and prosecutors have taken the testimonies, which run to some 1,200 pages, over the past four weeks.

The case is expected to yield unprecedented details of militant Islamist training and recruitment methods in Pakistan.

Gelowicz told the court Monday that he had originally wanted to travel to fight 'holy war' in Iraq, but instead travelled to Waziristan in the north-west of Pakistan, where the four are believed to have made contact with the Islamic Jihad Union, a jihadist group.

There, Gelowicz said, he became convinced of the need to pursue attacks against US interests in Europe, instead of against American troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Gelowicz said that a trainer from the Islamic Jihad Union, whom he named 'Ahmed,' had convinced the group that an attack in Europe 'could have a much greater effect with much less effort.'

The lead suspect gave details of how the group had travelled via Istanbul and Tehran to the town of Mir Ali, where they were met by 'heavily armed mujahedin,' and received several weeks of training.

The training included shooting with Kalashnikov rifles and detonating explosives made with hydrogen-peroxide, the substance the group was later observed to be procuring in Germany.

Gelowicz said they were also taught circuitry and how to make detonators.

Gelowicz, Yilmaz and Schneider were caught in September 2007 after months of police surveillance. Selek was caught in Turkey.

They had procured some 730 litres of hydrogen peroxide when police commandos swooped, but had apparently not fixed a target to attack.

If convicted, the four could face 15 years in prison.

Presiding judge Ottmar Breidling said that the case will now be able to be concluded much faster than originally thought, because of the confessions.

'I have the impression that all the cards are going to be put on the table,' he said.

The four members of the group have not been as cooperative from the beginning of their trial, often jeering and refusing to stand when judges entered the room. Prosecutors have expressed surprise at the decision of the men to confess, and said that the detail of their testimony was unprecedented.

Yilmaz told the court in June that he wanted to confess because he found the proceedings 'boring.'