GERMAN ANSAR CELL
On 12/03/2004 the German police arrested 3 suspects of plotting to assassinate the Iraqi Shiite PM Ayad Allawi while he was visiting in Berlin, Germany’s capital.
The three suspects were members of Ansar al Islam in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al Zarqawi. They were identified as Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid (1), 31, of Stuttgart, Mazen Ali Hussein, 23, of Augsburg, and the alleged direct coordinator of the plot Rafik Mohamad Yousef (2), 31, of Berlin. All the suspects are from Iraqi origin and lived in Germany as asylum seekers with German travel documents.
Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid is described by German security service as Ansar al Islam’s senior leader in Germany, where intelligence officials estimate the organization has 100 supporters. He was the middle man with Iraq and authorized the plot and the needed financing. Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid collected money on a monthly basis for Ansar al Islam between 2003 and 2004.
The three suspects were arrested due to the cell conversations of Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid with Rafik Mohamad Yousef, which were taped by the German security service.
A day before their arrest, on 12/02/2004, plotter Rafik Mohamad Yousef drove through central Berlin to study a Deutsche Bank building, where the Iraqi leader Ayad Allawi was due to hold a meeting the next day.
The three suspects have been charged, on 11/16/2005, in Germany over an alleged December 2004 plot to kill then-Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi at a Deutsche Bank reception in Berlin during his visit. They also were accused of providing logistic support and collecting and sending funds to Ansar al Islam in Iraq. According to the German prosecution Mazen Ali Hussein transferred the equivalent of $94,000 to Iraq to finance suicide attacks there.
Two suspects: Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid and Rafik Mohamad Yousef faced additional charges of recruiting suicide bombers for Iraq.
Their trial opened in Stuttgart, Germany, on 06/20/2006, in the high-security court specially designed for trials of Germany’s militant Red Army Faction in the 1970s.
On Tuesday 07/15/2008 the German court in Stuttgart sentenced Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid for 10 years imprisonment, Rafik Mohamad Yousef received 8 years and Mazen Ali Hussein was sentenced to 7.5 years in jail.
* Burhan B. 36, was arrested at Frankfurt International Airport on 06/12/2005. Prosecutors said from 11/2003 to 05/2004, Burhan B. sent money three times, totaling about $27,000 (22,000 euros), to Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid.
* On 06/14/2005, two days later, the German police arrested three suspects identified as Dieman A.I, 39, from Nuremberg, Kawa H, 33, from Munich, and Najat O, 43, from the south-western town of Buehl. Investigators believe Kawa H and Najat O took orders from Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid. Najat O, is accused of carrying out money transfers to Iraq for the group in mid-2004, prosecutors said in a statement.
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