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November 16, 2005
Germany: Three Iraqi Muslims Charged With Assassination Plot
Today, German prosecutors announced that three Iraqis, supposed members of Ansar al Islam, a Kurdish Iraqi terror organisation, have been charged in relation to a planned assassination of the former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, during his state visit to Germany in 2004.
wbz1030, gives an Associated Press account of the case, in which the three men, identified as Ata R (31), Mazen A. H. (23) and Rafik M. Y. (31) had been arrested on 3 December last year, when Allawi was visiting Berlin.
Prosecutors state that the three were formally charged on November 10 in Stuttgart. They were charged with belonging to a terrorist group, and conspiracy to kill Ayad Allawi. Ata R, the suspected ringleader of the group and Mazen H were further charged with suspected fund-raising for Ansar al Islam. For the latter offence, they were charged under Germany's export laws. All three are residents in Germany.
The prosecutors' statement states that Ata R was Ansar al Islam's main official in southern Germany with links to the group's leaders, and that he had carried out logistics for operations in Iraq and Iran. Rafik Y is alleged to have planned to kill Mr Allawi on a trip to a branch of the Deutsche Bank AG in Berlin on December 3.
A telephone call from Rafik, made on December 2, 2004 to the other senior members of the group, gained their approval for the killing, the prosecutors state. There is no maximum penalty for the charge of conspiracy, while the charge of belonging to a foreign terrorist terrorist organisation carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, under German law.
Ansar al Islam was founded in Kurdish regions of Iraq in December 2001, following a merger of an offshoot of the Islamic Movement, led by Mullah Krekar, with Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam). The group is based in Biyarah and its environs, close to the Iranian border. It has murdered women for not wearing the burqa, and has carried out several suicide attacks.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 16, 2005 11:55 AM
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