March 24,2010 - Daily Star - Court jails 20 AlQaeda suspects for plotting attacks.doc

BEIRUT: A Lebanese military court Tuesday handed 20 people jail sentences of up to 15 years after convicting them on charges of belonging to Al-Qaeda and plotting “terrorist attacks,” a judicial source said. Judge Nizar Khalil found the accused guilty of “belonging to Al-Qaeda and forming an armed gang with the aim of attacking civilians and undermining the state and its authority, attempting to execute terrorist attacks, forging official documents and transferring arms and wireless devices,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The court sentenced seven people, Palestinians and Syrians, to 15 years in prison in absentia. The 13 others, who had formed a separate cell, were in custody and received sentences of two to 10 years in prison. They include Saudi Arabian, Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese nationals. Members of the 13-strong cell have also been interrogated by a UN court probing the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri who was killed in a Beirut car bombing in 2005. – AFP