Europe Takes War on Al Qaeda to Courtrooms

Staring from a cage surrounded by police, a sullen Tunisian with close-cropped hair went on trial recently in one of the first cases to open a courtroom door onto the global law enforcement war against Al Qaeda.

Prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso laid out charges that Mehdi Kammoun, 34, was a leader of a Milan terrorist cell. After bugging the phones and apartments of accused terrorists, Italian police listened for months as the men allegedly sought to become martyrs for Osama bin Laden, conspired with top suspects around Europe and carried out a “punitive expedition,” using martial arts weapons to beat up a Tunisian consulate employee who they thought was a spy.

“Attacks have to be well planned,” Kammoun said in a conversation about chemical weapons, according to wiretap transcripts. “It’s a good thing they don’t see the gas, because if they see the gas that’s really dangerous. There’s a difference between a cylinder of gas and a can of gasoline. . . . These are really delicate things.”

Outside Afghanistan, the shadow war against Al Qaeda has mostly been waged so far by police slouched in cars during stakeouts and kicking in doors during raids. Now the courts are taking over in Western Europe, where thousands of extremists were radicalized and dozens allegedly plotted crimes, including the Sept. 11 attacks.

Cases opened in Europe and Southeast Asia, another important front, show that authorities have foiled attacks, captured significant suspects and gained a better understanding of the anarchic workings of Al Qaeda. But the legal battlefield, especially in Europe, seems as much of a labyrinth as the caves of Afghanistan.

Though the suspected terrorists are often brazen and visible, it is difficult to make major charges stick. If they are convicted, many of the approximately 100 accused Al Qaeda members arrested in Europe since Sept. 11 could receive prison terms of less than 10 years.

Bin Laden’s soldiers “jurisdiction-shopped,” as a U.S. official puts it, selectively deploying themselves to take advantage of a continent that has opened borders to commerce and travel but not to police and laws.

European sleuths have learned a lot since Sept. 11 because they already knew a lot. At the moment the first hijacked plane slammed into a tower in Manhattan, Islamic extremists in Europe were already under surveillance. The strategy in France, Italy and other countries has been to watch suspects as long as possible; after Sept. 11, the police rolled in their nets.

“We prefer to wait and gather the maximum evidence,” said Dambruoso, 40, a lanky and animated veteran of the Sicilian mafia wars who is protected by a carload of bodyguards because of suspected terrorist threats.

Until Sept. 11, he said, “everybody thought the problem was for the Americans and the Israelis. We didn’t have strong laws against international terrorism in Italy, in Belgium, Germany and other countries until Sept. 11. The terrorists knew that.”

As the Kammoun trial began last month, Dambruoso won the conviction of four other defendants including the ringleader of the Milan cell, Essid Sami ben Khemais, on charges of criminal association. In a procedure similar to a plea bargain, Ben Khemais and another man received five years in prison. Two accomplices received four years.

Although investigators consider them dangerous and U.S. authorities have identified their mosque as a European logistical base for Al Qaeda, the law makes it hard to win stiffer sentences unless extremists are caught in the act.

“Information from intelligence services in Europe, the United States or Israel is not always judicial evidence,” Dambruoso said. Kammoun and his fellow suspects face potential sentences of five to six years in prison on charges including conspiracy, document fraud and involvement in illegal immigration.

Italy is among several countries that have quickly toughened their anti-terrorism laws. Germany, the headquarters of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Belgium and Britain were particularly good clandestine bases for Al Qaeda cells because of liberal policies on immigration, political asylum and civil liberties.

France, in contrast, permits suspected terrorists to be held for up to four years pending trial. Suspects arrested after Sept. 11 for allegedly plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris face a maximum of 10 years in prison.

“In Europe, you have a great difficulty,” said Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a top French anti-terrorist official. “You have many independent states with different systems and mentalities. You have common law versus civil law traditions. You have federal and centralized systems.”

Investigators have worked hard to improve cooperation. Sharing information has led them to realize that despite Al Qaeda’s seeming omnipresence, its world is quite small. Cells are more connected to each other than seems likely or logical, either for strategic reasons, or simply because suspects are friends from their days in London mosques or wind-swept Afghan training camps, investigators say.

“You have to change mentality and understand the connections without a preestablished analytical system,” Bruguiere said. “We have recognized the erratic, illogical aspects of this movement. That has allowed us to build our approach to our work.”

It was not unusual that the Milan terrorists spent hours immersed in incriminating conversations even as they constantly changed cell phones and worried about being discovered, Dambruoso said. “The life of a terrorist is totally about this,” he said. “It’s a kind of status; it gives meaning to their lives.”

Other European investigators also had listened to suspected terrorists for a long time. Members of an alleged Madrid cell had been under surveillance since 1996. And months before his capture, Belgian police shadowing Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian fresh from the Afghan camps, picked up indications that he “was going to do something big and foolish,” according to an investigator.

On Sept. 13, Trabelsi was arrested on charges that he planned to be the suicide bomber in the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

“There is hardly anyone in the world who has been arrested about whom we did not have information,” Bruguiere said.

Nonetheless, investigators do not always realize what they are seeing.

German police did not get wind of the Sept. 11 plot, which was carried out by a terrorist cell based in Hamburg, even though they had put one of the future hijackers’ key associates under surveillance in late 1999 and 2000.

Even the capture of alleged terrorist chieftains does not necessarily mean that they will spend decades behind bars. A case in point is Tarek Maaroufi, 36, a Tunisian-born Islamic activist in Brussels, who investigators have concluded was a pivotal figure in Europe.

3-Year Sentence for Terror Involvement

In 1995, a Belgian court sentenced Maaroufi to three years in prison for involvement in Algerian terrorist groups that were gradually absorbed by Al Qaeda.

Investigators said he also co-founded a dangerous network known as the Tunisian Islamic Fighting Group with Seifallah ben Hassine, a former London extremist thought to be on the run in Afghanistan.

Maaroufi allegedly aided fellow Tunisian Dahmane Abd Sattar and another assassin who killed anti-Taliban leader Ahmed Shah Masoud in Afghanistan on Sept. 9. A U.S. official says Abd Sattar is believed to have had contacts with several Sept. 11 hijackers in Europe in the mid-1990s.

In addition, Maaroufi allegedly has links to cells in Belgium, France and the Netherlands involved in the plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris, and to suspects in Spain who funneled money to the Hamburg hijackers, according to Spanish law enforcement officials.

And investigators found links tying the embassy plotters to Frenchman Zacarias Moussaoui, who is the accused “20th hijacker” jailed in the United States, and Richard C. Reid, who allegedly tried to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight with explosives planted in his shoes.

But Maaroufi has been charged only with recruiting mercenaries and document fraud, for allegedly providing stolen Belgian passports and fraudulent Pakistani visas for the Masoud assassination. If found guilty, he faces between three and eight years in prison, officials say.

Maaroufi knew that Belgium’s anti-terrorism laws were weak and that his Belgian citizenship shielded him, investigators said.

It’s not just a question of tougher laws, however. The Masoud assassination displayed Al Qaeda’s technique of breaking crimes down into “minimally prosecutable incidents,” the U.S. official said.

“They might have training in one country, money in another, equipment and documents in a third,” the official said. “They worked it beautifully. It’s trade-craft.”

In the Masoud case, the Brussels-based assassins obtained fake documents, money, plane tickets and a letter of recommendation from accomplices in Belgium, France and Britain, according to investigators. The killers presumably acquired explosives after flying to Pakistan and crossing into Afghanistan.

British prosecutors charged an Egyptian bookseller in London with conspiracy to commit murder. But other European prosecutors are less likely to file homicide-related charges against alleged accomplices in a slaying that took place thousands of miles away, officials say.

It is even less certain what is happening to another top target in Europe, London-based Omar Mahmoud Othman, a Palestinian-born cleric better known as Abu Qatada. London has been the Al Qaeda nerve center in Europe, and investigators allege that Abu Qatada is the dominant ideologue.

Investigators on the European mainland said British authorities indicated privately after a police sweep in December that Abu Qatada had been arrested under a new anti-terrorism law. But there has been no official comment from British authorities since then.

Coordinating action against suspected terrorists is even more difficult in Southeast Asia. A cleric accused of being the Indonesian equivalent of Abu Qatada has not been arrested because Indonesian police say they don’t have enough evidence.

Abu Bakar Bashir has been identified as the ideological leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the main organization allied to Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia. The founder of an Islamic school in Indonesia, Bashir lived for many years in neighboring Malaysia. He denies terrorist activity but praises Bin Laden.

Indonesian police have interviewed Bashir twice but say they need more proof than the statements given by suspects held in Singapore and Malaysia. Indonesia also does not have the legal weapons of Malaysia and Singapore, both of which used internal security acts for recent crackdowns.

Thirteen suspects arrested in a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Singapore were ordered detained for at least two years under regulations allowing those deemed a security threat to be held indefinitely without trial. The act requires closed-door hearings to review detentions.

The most wanted Islamic extremist in Southeast Asia is Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who allegedly is the operational leader of Jemaah Islamiah and Al Qaeda’s point man for the region. Malaysian officials believe that he had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 attack and hosted two of the hijackers in Malaysia.

The ability of authorities to catch and convict Hambali and others suspected of playing supporting roles in the Sept. 11 attacks will be a barometer of the campaign against Al Qaeda.

Cases May Illuminate the Sept. 11 Plot

Three prosecutions that also could shed light on preparations for the attacks are the Moussaoui case in Virginia federal court, German charges against a Moroccan immigrant and the case of the Madrid cell.

German police arrested the Moroccan, Mounir Motassadeq, on Nov. 28 and accused him of “supporting a terrorist association.” A friend of Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian who allegedly led the Hamburg terrorist cell, Motassadeq is the only suspect arrested in Germany in the Sept. 11 case. Authorities also indicted three fugitives and issued arrest warrants for them as key accomplices.

Motassadeq said he was merely a fellow student of Atta at Hamburg’s Technical University. However, he was one of two witnesses to Atta’s 1996 will. Police have 18 months in which to hold and investigate him.

In the Madrid case, Spanish prosecutors have the advantage of strong laws passed to combat the threat from Basque terrorists.

Alleged ringleader Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas and seven others face charges of belonging to a terrorist group, an offense carrying a potential sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison, officials say. Barakat is a major catch, according to Spanish, U.S. and French officials.

“It looks like they have a big piece of the puzzle,” a U.S. official said. “If he’s not at the level of Abu Qatada [in London], he’s very close.”

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon charged Barakat and his fellow defendants in connection with the Sept. 11 case, accusations based largely on Barakat’s apparent contact with Atta and on intercepted telephone conversations suggesting prior knowledge of the World Trade Center plot.

Barakat’s travels to meet with alleged Al Qaeda leaders around the world included trips to Indonesia and Malaysia, where important planning for the U.S. hijackings took place, according to U.S. and Spanish officials.

Spanish investigators hope to connect Barakat’s group to the movements of Atta and others in Spain shortly before Sept. 11, particularly a visit by Atta in July. Investigators think that Atta came to Spain for logistical or planning activity.

The Madrid cell and a North African-dominated Al Qaeda group in Granada financed cells elsewhere, including the Hamburg group, Spanish officials said. Over several years, suspects in Spain used wire transfers and couriers to send hundreds of thousands of dollars to Belgium and Germany, according to Spanish law enforcement officials.

“Apparently, money was sent from Spain connecting our suspects to the cells who went to the United States to carry out the attacks,” a Spanish law enforcement official said. “There was money sent directly to the Hamburg group.”

But investigators are still trying to reconstruct Atta’s visit to Spain. Police recently found witnesses who said they saw Atta change currency at the Port Aventura theme park near the northeastern coastal town of Salou.

Atta’s presence in the park bolsters the theory that he was in Spain for clandestine meetings, perhaps with confederates based in other European countries plotting their own attacks, the official said.

“Atta was seen alone,” the law enforcement official said. “But we think he was at the park to meet someone--it would be an ideal cover.”

Another lead is a trip to Madrid by Ramzi Binalshibh of the Hamburg cell. Binalshibh, a citizen of Yemen, is wanted for allegedly aiding the hijackers; he intended to participate in the attacks, authorities said, but could not get a U.S. visa.

On Sept. 5, Binalshibh flew from Germany to Madrid and spent two days at a private residence there, according to investigators. During his stay, someone called the hijackers in the United States from a pay phone at a bar about a block from a downtown mosque, where accused members of the Madrid cell were active, according to the Spanish law enforcement official. Instead of using the return portion of his ticket to Germany, Binalshibh left Spain for another country, probably Pakistan, officials said.

Evidence in the Sept. 11 plot and other parts of Al Qaeda’s puzzle will be tested in court systems whose safeguards and liberties have been--and will continue to be--exploited by extremists bent on destroying Western democracy.

“It’s frustrating because now everyone has realized how dangerous this activity is,” Dambruoso said. “Now there’s a general will to create a common European judicial space so our work against terrorism is easier and more unified. We are working towards those goals, but it will take years to reach them.”

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Times staff writers Richard C. Paddock in Jakarta, Indonesia, Richard Boudreaux in Rome, Carol J. Williams in Berlin and researchers Janet Stobart in London and Sarah White in Paris contributed to this report.