Five people went on trial in Berlin yesterday for bombing a crowded disco in the city in 1986, an operation that prosecutors claim was carried out on direct orders from Libya. The defendants, two Palestinians, a Libyan and two German women, sat behind bullet-proof glass as charges were read in the heavily fortified courtroom.
The prosecution alleges that Mr Yasser Shraydi (38) paid fellow Palestinian, Mr Ali Chanaa (38), to help him organise the bombing on April 5th, 1986, of the La Belle night club, a favourite haunt of US soldiers stationed in West Berlin.
Mr Chanaa's German wife at the time, Verena (38), and her sister Ms Andrea Haeusler (32), are accused of selecting the venue and planting the bomb.
Two American soldiers, Terrance Ford (21) and James Goins (25) and a Turkish woman, Nermin Haney (28), were killed by the blast, which ripped through the floor of the building and blew the front wall out onto the street, injuring more than 200 people.
The US immediately blamed Libya for the attack, claiming that they intercepted a message to Tripoli from the Libyan People's Bureau in East Berlin which read: "At 1.30 in the morning one of the acts was carried out with success, without leaving a trace behind."
Ten days later, US fighter planes bombed the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi, killing numerous people including the adoptive daughter of the country's leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi.
It was not until after the collapse of the East German state in 1990 that investigators found the evidence they needed to confirm the American view that the La Belle bombing was ordered by Libya. Files kept by the East German secret police, the Stasi, revealed that the communist government in East Berlin were fully informed about the planned attack but did nothing to prevent it. Prosecutors claim that 12 kilos of plastic explosives were flown into East Berlin from Tripoli and held in a safe in the Libyan People's Bureau before being smuggled into West Berlin to make the bomb.
The chief witness for the prosecution is Musbah Eter (40), a former Libyan diplomat who has admitted helping to organise the attack. He has incriminated the other four defendants but, like them, he could face life in prison if convicted as an accomplice to the crime.
Earlier this year, a Berlin court sparked a diplomatic rift with Iran when it ruled that the government in Tehran ordered the murder of Iranian dissidents in a Berlin restaurant.
The heavy security around the court yesterday was reminiscent of that marathon trial and lawyers were predicting that this case too could run for two years.
"I've been waiting 11 years for this trial. I hope they get life," said Mr Richard George (38), a former GI from Oklahoma, Nebraska, and one of over 50 US servicemen injured.
Mr Heino Moehring (44), remembers the explosion that led to the amputation of half of his left leg and shattered his life.
"I looked down and my leg was in shreds - it looked like something you would see at the butchers," said Mr Moehring, who worked at the club as a part-time barman.
