Syrian jailed for 15 years over 9/11 conspiracy
A suspected al-Qaida cell leader was today convicted of conspiring to commit murder in connection with the September 11 attacks in the United States and sentenced to 15 years in jail by a Spanish court, while two other suspects were acquitted.
Syrian Imad Yarkas, the accused cell leader, got an additional 12 years for being a leader of a terrorist organisation.
Yarkas and 23 other suspects who stood trial were expressionless as the verdicts were read out in the Spanish National Court at the conclusion of Europe’s biggest trial of al-Qaida suspects.
Spanish prosecutors had accused Yarkas, a 42-year-old Spaniard of Syrian origin, of being an accomplice to murder and requested a jail term of nearly 75,000 years – 25 years for each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the suicide airliner attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001.
But in the end he was convicted of the lesser charge of conspiracy and sentenced to 15 years.
Yarkas had been charged with arranging a meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain in July 2001 at which key September 11 plotters – alleged suicide pilot Mohamed Atta and plot co-ordinator Ramzi Binsalshibh – met to decide last-minute details, including the date of the attacks.
Another suspect, Moroccan Driss Chebli, was also alleged to have helped set up that meeting. He was acquitted today of murder charges, but convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group and sentenced to six years.
The third suspect facing specific September 11 charges – and acquitted today - was Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, another Syrian-born Spaniard. He was indicted over detailed video footage he shot of the World Trade Centre and other landmarks during a trip to several American cities in 1997.
Judge Baltasar Garzon, the investigative magistrate who indicted the 24 suspects in 2003, had said the tapes were passed on to al Qaida and amounted to the beginning of planning for the September 11 attacks. Ghalyoun said during the trial he shot the tapes as an innocent tourist.
Ghalyoun was also acquitted of charges of being a member of a terrorist organisation.
