Word: french
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...During the trial, French justice officials produced cell phone records that showed the suicide bomber, Nizar Nawar, had called Ganczarski shortly before the attack to receive a blessing - a benediction prosecutors say was the go-ahead sign for the strike. Nawar made a similar call to Pakistan to speak with al-Qaeda terror maestro Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, currently held in Guantanamo as the self-proclaimed architect of 9/11. (Sheikh Mohammed will be tried in absentia by France as the plotter of the Tunisian attack this spring...
...French officials, who had asked for a 30-year sentence for Ganczarski, were still pleased with the outcome. The guilty verdict in a such a difficult case, they note, is a sign that France's counter-terrorism and civil justice system works. "It's gratifying to see the French legal system can both enhance security and render justice to victims by prosecuting terror cases above the board, and by the book," says Marc Trévidic, a senior investigating magistrate in France's specialized anti-terrorism division. "It's especially true in a complicated case like this...
...activities - including links to the Tunisian plot - German officials eventually freed him, citing legal technicalities that prevented them from filing charges. When Ganczarski traveled to Saudi Arabia, German authorities alerted Saudi counterparts he was suspected of extremist activity. After Saudi police observed Ganczarski meeting with local radicals, American and French intelligence services where brought in on the case - and soon devised a way of taking Ganczarski out of action without resorting to kidnapping or extraordinary rendition. There, they knew, French justice officials had an official opened an official investigation open on two French tourists who'd been killed...
...Whenever a French citizen is in anyway responsible for or a victim of terrorist activity anywhere in the world, French law allows us to open an investigation with the intent of taking it to trial," Trévidic explains. But given the over-lapping legal structures and security forces that had become involved, building a convictable case with far-ranging evidence required both a lot of work, and faith in the system, Trévidic says. "Eighteen years wasn't the 30 we sought, but it's still a reflection of how serious the court took the claims of complicity...
...outcome of the French trial comes at a significant moment. On Monday, a U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco will hear a case brought by three plaintiffs charging they were tortured during extraordinary renditions the Bush administration approved as part of the war on terror. Previous legal challenges to such measures were thwarted by government refusal to provide courts with evidence or testimony requested, citing state secrecy. Many observers now hope the Obama administration will release previously withheld information as it deconstructs the extra-legal system for dealing with terror suspects and return them to courts that handled them...