A French court will begin the trial of two suspected lieutenants of Osama bin Laden and a third man on Monday for their part in a 2002 bomb attack in Tunisia that killed 21 people including two French nationals.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani believed to be one of the planners of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, is suspected of organising the suicide truck bomb attack on a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, on April 11, 2002. He is being held in the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay and will be tried in his absence.
Christian Ganczarski, a German convert to Islam who spent time in Afghanistan and is believed to have been an adviser to Osama bin Laden before his arrest in France in 2003, will also face charges of helping to prepare the attack. Walid Nouar, the brother of the Djerba suicide bomber, will also be tried for his involvement in preparing the attack.
The trial is expected to last five weeks. All three men face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted. Both Ganczarski and Walid Nouar deny involvement in the attack.
The Djerba tourists were killed when the bomber drove a tanker truck filled with cooking gas to the synagogue and blew it up as they were entering the building, which was virtually destroyed. A synagogue had stood on the site for 1,900 years. Fourteen Germans and five Tunisians were also killed in the blast and 30 people were wounded.