Journo denies al-Qaeda links

2005-05-16 20:24

Madrid - A war correspondent for the Arab satellite TV station, al-Jazeera, on Monday denied charges he had close ties to the alleged leader of a Spanish al-Qaeda cell accused of helping to plot the September 11 attacks in the United States.

He described how he had interviewed Osama bin Laden weeks after the massacre.

Tayssir Alouni, 50, was among 24 suspects on trial in Europe's biggest court case against radical groups with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda terror network.

Three of the suspects were accused of using Spain as a staging ground to help plan the suicide airliner attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Alouni, a Syrian-born Spaniard, was among the other 21 accused of terrorism, weapons possession or other offences, but not September 11 planning.

Blindfolded

Alouni, who appeared calm and relaxed before the three-judge panel, described how he was taken by armed, blindfolded men to meet bin Laden, weeks after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

Alouni said: "I was taken out of the car, they removed the blindfold and there was bin Laden. He welcomed me and said that he was sorry for the inconvenience.

"I'm not going to say where and when I did it."

He said bin Laden asked him for a list of questions and wanted to control the interview by saying he was going to answer questions about ideology, but not politics and provided his own cameras.

Alouni said he found it difficult to do the interview professionally.

Hardline Taliban regime

"He did not want to answer all the questions. I told him that we did not work that way".

Alouni covered the war in Afghanistan after the US invasion to topple the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies, and was one of the few journalists allowed by the hardline Taliban regime to operate from areas under its control.

Alouni said: "I wished I was known for my coverage of the Afghan war, not just for interviewing bin Laden."

Spanish investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon said that while living in the southern Spanish city of Granada, Alouni formed a radical Muslim indoctrination unit in the 1990s.

'I thought Yarkas was a nice man'

He said he was the right-hand man of the alleged leader of the Spanish cell, Syrian-born Spaniard Imad Yarkas, who was also on trial.

Alouni denied that he had close relations with Yarkas, whom he said he met in the early 90s.

Alouni told the court: "We met just as Syrian nationals. I've always thought that he was a nice and polite man. This relationship has never been intense or continuous."

He admitted he once had contacts with Mustafa Setmariam, a key al-Qaeda operative who ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and Mohamed Bahaiah, known as a courier between Osama bin Laden and European cells.

Alouni said he had met the two men in Granada and later in Afghanistan when he was working in Kabul, but he didn't describe them as al-Qaeda members.

- AP