Tunisian national acquitted of plotting terror attack alongside Osama bin Laden.

Tunisian National Accused of Plotting Terrorist Attack Found Not Guilty

A Tunisian national, Nizar Trabelsi, who was accused of plotting a terrorist attack against Americans in Europe in 2001 with Osama bin Laden, has been found not guilty by a Washington, D.C., jury.

Trabelsi, a former Tunisian soccer star, was detained in 2001 and convicted in a Belgian court in 2003. After serving a 10-year sentence in Belgium, he was extradited to the United States in 2013. The indictment against him alleged that he had traveled to Afghanistan to plan a suicide bomb attack with bin Laden on the Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium, where U.S. personnel are stationed.

U.S. authorities claimed that Trabelsi had collected chemicals to produce a 1,000-kilogram bomb and had scouted out the base with others. However, his lawyers argued that the statements he made to Belgian authorities, which led to his original conviction, were provably false, contained contradictions, and were made under duress.

Trabelsi’s lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, stated, “We all agree that he was born in Tunisia, he is a good soccer player, and he is an incessant talker who made statement after statement after statement to Belgian authorities. Most of his statements, if not all, could not be objectively corroborated.”

Shroff also argued that Trabelsi was a victim of the hysteria surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A Justice Department official confirmed that Trabelsi will be sent back to Belgium and, in the meantime, will remain in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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