Jordanian accused of terror plot

A Jordanian suspected of being a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden went on trial in Germany yesterday accused of helping to plot terrorist attacks in Germany.

Shadi Abdellah, 26, was among nine people arrested in Germany in April 2002 and charged with planning terrorist attacks. If convicted he faces up to 10 years in jail.

Prosecutors said Mr Abdellah was connected with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian whom the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, described last year as an "associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants".

Mr Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed al-Khalayleh, is believed to have been behind attacks on targets in America and Jordan including the killing of a US diplomat, Laurence Foley, who was gunned down outside his home in Amman.

Prosecutors said Mr Abdellah was part of the German-based al-Tawhid group and "developed a plan to attack people in a busy square of a German city using a pistol with a silencer, and to detonate a hand grenade in another German city in the immediate vicinity of an Israeli or Jewish installation with the goal of killing as many people as possible". The target city was not named.

Mr Abdellah testified at the trial of Mounir el Motassadeq last November, who was convicted of aiding the Hamburg cell involved in the September 11 attacks.

His trial is being held in a special high security courtroom and is scheduled to continue until September.