The high-security trial of 23 alleged al-Qaeda-linked militants ended in Belgium with the main defendant, a former professional footballer, insisting he had renounced violence. Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi, who used to play for German league side Fortuna Dusseldorf, faces up to 10 years in jail for plotting a devastating attack on a US military base in Belgium on behalf of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. During the five-week trial, which was marked by smothering security from heavily armed police, prosecutors sought jail terms of between 18 months and five years for the rest of Trabelsi’s alleged cell. The presiding judge said he would deliver verdicts on September 30 following one of the first such trials in Europe since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Full Story
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