Ex-footballer faces trial in US for links to Qaeda
Nizar Trabelsi to be tried in US for planning terror attacks
A Belgian appeals court decided Tuesday to hand over a Tunisian- Belgian former footballer to U.S. authorities to stand trial for his alleged ties to the al-Qaeda terror organization.
American authorities want the 39 year-old Nizar Trabelsi extradited for cooperating with al-Qaeda in plotting attacks U.S. and NATO air bases in northern Belgium in 2001.
Trabelsi, played for several German teams before he was arrested in
2001, two days after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
In 2003, he was sentenced to eight years in jail for plotting to attack American soldiers and planning to bomb a U.S. airbase in Belgium. He was found guilty of arms possession and his membership in a terror organization.
Confessional reports show Trabelsi, who tried to escape several times from prison in 2007, intended to blow himself up in front of a restaurant near the base located about 160 km (100 miles) from Brussels.
The ex-footballer is reported to have met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on many occasions.
(Translated from the Arabic by Marwa Awad)