Terrorist sentenced to 10 years

Joan Collins THE Spanish High Court has sentenced an Algerian man, Ahmed Brahim who used to live and run a business in Palma, to 10 years in prison for terrorist crimes. Brahim used to live on the Paseo Maritimo. He ran a yacht chandlery business in the Club de Mar and visited the local mosque. He later moved to Barcelona, where he was arrested. His family have always maintained his innocence. He was accused of creating a webpage to publish “fatwas” (an Islamic decree sentencing a person to death), handed out by the leaders of the Al Qaeda network to justify carrying out acts of terrorism based on “Sharia” law (strict Islamic law). Brahim, the court said, “following the strategy of the terrorist organisation Al Qaeda, decided to develop a project for the spreading of the radical and fundamentalist idealogy of extreme Islam, including the cited fatwas, and to reach Muslims the world over”. Because of this, the language used was French as “many Muslims in the western world have no understanding of Arabic”. The resolution says that when the defendant was arrested, on April 13 2002, he was creating, for publication on the internet, “a webpage teaching the most radical and extreme parts of Islam, advocating Jihads (holy wars) and the acceptance of war against everyone who doesn't share their beliefs, their religious practices and their way of life in any part of the world”. According to the court, Brahim had a telephone conversation in April 1998 with Mahmoud Mahmoud Salim (alias “Abu Hajer”) who was extradited from Germany to the United States accused of being the mastermind behind attacks on US embassies. Between the day of this conversation and May 30, the accused met Salim and a leader of Al Qaeda, Hasan Al-Homaid, at his home in Palma with “the aim of finalising the project which they called The Dissemination Project”. The court also considered it proved that between September 9 and 13 Brahim had a second meeting with Salim and Al-Homaid, this time including the extremist Hamad M.A. Ghamas, who is linked to two of the senior members of Al Qaeda. According to the court, Ghamas gave the accused 22 CDs from Salman Al Ouda, a source very close to Osama Bin Laden. He also had contact with members of extreme radical groups. In fact he met, among others, Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet and with Sheiks Yahya Ibrahim Ali Al-Yahya and Al-Majed Al Zindani.