Madrid, Spain – A Syrian-born businessman was sentenced to 27 years in prison Monday after being convicted of leading a terrorist cell and conspiring to commit murder in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But he was cleared of a more serious charge in Europe’s biggest trial of suspected al-Qaeda members.
Another man accused of helping one of the hijackers to set up a key meeting was acquitted of being an accessory to murder but was convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group. Sixteen other people were convicted of collaborating with or belonging to the terror cell.
A third suspect facing specific Sept. 11 charges over video he shot of the World Trade Center and other U.S. landmarks was cleared of all charges.
The three main suspects – Imad Yarkas, Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun and Driss Chebli – had been charged as accessories to murder and could have faced sentences of more than 74,000 years each – 25 years for each of the 2,973 people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Yarkas led a cell that raised money and recruited men for Osama bin Laden’s terror group and “turned itself over completely to fulfilling the sinister designs decided by al-Qaeda,” according to the three-judge panel of the National Court.
But the panel said, “The only thing proven is Yarkas’ conspiracy with the suicide terrorist” Mohamed Atta and other members of the al-Qaeda cell based in Hamburg, Germany, that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
Chebli, a Moroccan, was alleged to have helped set up a meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain in July 2001 at which key Sept. 11 plotters met to decide last-minute details He was convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group and sentenced to six years.
Ghalyoun, a Syrian-born Spaniard who was indicted over the video he shot during a trip to New York City and several other U.S. cities in 1997, was acquitted of being an accessory to murder and of being a member of a terrorist organization.
Twenty-one people stood trial on charges not directly related to 9/11. Of those, 16 were convicted of belonging to or collaborating with a terrorist organization and five were acquitted.
