German court sentences four terrorist suspects

A German court sentenced Wednesday four men charged with plotting terrorist bombings in Germany against Jewish targets under the leadership of al-Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to prison terms up to eight years.

Prosecutors said the men of Palestinian, Jordanian and Algerian origin belonged to a German group within the al-Tawhid organization led by al- Zarqawi, who also heads an al-Qaeda faction in Iraq.

The organization was blamed for many of the bombings on Iraq's Shiites and police as well as the murder of foreign kidnap victims.

The Higher Regional Court in the western German city of Duesseldorf said that the men prepared attacks in Germany on Jewish-Israeli targets according to orders from al-Zarqawi and " additionally provided fighters abroad with false documents".

They planned a bombing near a Jewish institution in Berlin and a grenade attack on a nightclub owned by Jewish people in Dusseldorf, prosecutors said, but they denied the charges.

The four men have been in custody since their arrest in April 2002 before they could obtain any weapons to carry out attacks.

Jordanian defendants Mohamed Abu Dhess and Ismail Shalabi and Palestinian Aschraf al-Dagma were sentenced to between six and eight years in prison for belonging to the cell. Djamel Moustfa, an Algerian, will be locked up for five years for supporting the group,the court said.

Source: Xinhua