Algerians Were Recruiting for Al-qaida, Court Told

Two Algerian men living in Leicester used forged credit cards and propaganda to help fund and recruit members for the al-Qaida terrorist network, a court was told yesterday.

Baghdad Meziane, 38, and Brahim Benmerzouga, 31, who had been under surveillance by British intelligence for months when they were arrested two weeks after the September 11 attacks in the US, are the first men to go on trial in Britain accused of having links with Osama bin Laden.

Mark Ellison QC, prosecuting, said it was not alleged that either man had conspired in the planning or carrying out of any individual terrorist acts, but that property and money in their possession was to be made available to people who did. "It is the prosecution case in a nutshell that the arrangement they became concerned in was for the purposes of promoting an Islamic extremism that explicitly embraces the use of the threat of terrorism as a means of advancement of violent jihad," Mr Ellison told Leicester crown court's jury.

Mr Ellison said among the items the men had made available were money - and the means of generating it by counterfeiting bankcards and account details - as well as propaganda for recruiting followers and raising funds. There were also passports to reach places for training, and solar batteries and other items that could further the terrorists' aims.

The prosecutor said the propaganda material, which included 19 vidoes of Bin Laden's speeches and graphic images of violence committed by Islamist fundamentalists against non-believers, clearly promoted global jihad. He said it was an ideology promoted by Bin Laden, and one that "embraces the use of terrorism as a means of advancement".

He told the jury: "The graphic images of violence in these films are often combined with religious chants justifying and calling Muslim brothers to the jihad. Some of the vidoes were held in such quantity that they could only have been intended to be made available to others." He added: "It is material which has been quite deliberately put together to be shocking and heavily religious in its slant and obviously therefore radicalising and drawing in recruits, particularly a young Muslim audience that might see them."

The two men, who were arrested in Leicester on September 25 2001, with a third man, Kamel Daoudi, had been photographed by British intelligence agents visiting banks and bureaux de change together.

Benmerzouga and Daoudi were arrested in an early-morning raid at a house on Prospect Hill, Leicester. Police had broken down the door to find Benmerzouga standing on the stairs. Daoudi was in a bedroom, where police found a stolen laptop, printer and scanner. Computer disks found in Daoudi's coat pocket and a computer's hard drive contained extremist material.

Meziane, who has pleaded guilty to possessing a forged passport, told police after his arrest that he entered Britain in 1999 when he claimed asylum on the grounds that his life was danger. But the prosecution said he had arrived in 1997, when he entered the country using a passport in the name of Cyril Jacob.

Meziane, who previously had had an asylum claim turned down, in the Netherlands in 1995, used the passport to open a Lloyds bank account, get a job at a food factory in Corby and claim housing and tax benefits.

The crown alleged that Benmerzouga, who pleaded guilty to possessing three false passports, had been living in Britain illegally since August 1997, when he opened an account at Barclays bank in Richmond using the name Brahim Ben Merzoga.

The two men on trial deny entering into a funding scheme for the purpose of terrorism, while Meziane also denies conspiring with others to defraud by making and using fake bankcards and card details, a charge Benmerzouga has admitted.

The case continues.