A Tunisian man accused of plotting bomb attacks on Jewish and US targets in Germany and trying to found an Islamist terrorist organisation went on trial in Berlin today.
The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office said Mr Ihsan Garnaoui had trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and travelled to Germany in January 2003 to plan the attacks.
The prosecutor's office said Mr Garnaoui asked people he knew through a Berlin mosque to help him carry out the attacks and they had agreed to help him found a group.
But Mr Garnaoui's defence lawyer told the court there was no evidence he had stayed in Afghanistan or tried to form a terrorist group in Berlin.
She said that the prosecution's charges against him were an "experiment". She demanded to know why, if the evidence was strong as prosecutors alleged, only Mr Garnaoui was charged but half a dozen other participants in the alleged plot were not.
The prosecution said Mr Garnaoui had planned to detonate several bombs by mobile telephone during a demonstration in the German capital at the start of the Iraq war. He was arrested in March 2003 before the demonstration.
The case was adjourned the until May 11th.