18 years for involvement in the killing of 21 people?
“German, Tunisian sentenced in synagogue attack,” by Verena Von Derschau for AP, February 5 (thanks to James):
PARIS (AP) “” A French court sentenced a German convert to Islam to 18 years in prison Thursday for his role in the bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia that killed 21 people nearly eight years ago.
Christian Ganczarski, 42, maintained that he had nothing to do with the attack on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba. However, the French court ruled that Ganczarski gave the “green light” to the Tunisian suicide bomber who carried out the attack.
Prosecutors said the April 2002 attack was carried out on the orders of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who is being tried in absentia while he remains in U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay where he is being held for his role in the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.
The brother of one of the Tunisian suicide bombers, Walid Naouar, received a 12-year sentence for having provided material help for the attack….
To the end, Ganczarski denied that he had committed any crime. “I am innocent,” Ganczarski told the court Thursday before deliberations on the verdict and sentencing began.
The prosecution had presented a video showing Ganczarki with Osama bin Laden in January 2000, as well as a tape of a phone conversation in which Ganczarski is said to have given his blessing to the attack.
French prosecutors had said Mohammed ordered the attack that also killed five Tunisians and two French nationals. The death of the French prompted the investigation and trial in Paris….