Terror Suspects Beating Charges Filed in Europe

BERLIN -- The defendant, a Tunisian man with a bushy beard, sits inside a bulletproof glass box in the courtroom. Since his arrest more than a year ago, German authorities have declared the suspect, Ihsan Garnaoui, to be a terrorist and a threat to national security, a man who plotted attacks against U.S. and Jewish targets here.

But since his trial began earlier this month, prosecutors have struggled to make their accusations stick. Witnesses for the state have displayed shaky memories. Security officials have refused to allow two confidential informants to take the stand. And a key police report is missing.

The evidence has been so thin that prosecutors have been unable to provide basic details of the attacks Garnaoui was allegedly planning, such as where they would take place or who else was involved. One of the defendant's attorneys, Michael Rosenthal, wears a happy grin in court and confidently predicts an acquittal. "There's nothing there," he said.

The trial already bears the hallmarks of many other failed terrorism prosecutions across Europe that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. European governments have rounded up hundreds of suspects, claiming to disrupt numerous spectacular attacks in the making, only to see the cases collapse months or years later in the courts.

Officials say that difficulties in investigating secretive terror cells, limited cooperation from intelligence agencies and judicial safeguards of defendants' rights have all contributed to this outcome. Muslim spokesmen and civil liberties groups say that police and prosecutors under intense pressure for results often simply go after the wrong people.

European governments have deeply criticized the Bush administration's decision to keep hundreds of terrorism suspects out of the civilian judicial system and put them instead in the custody of U.S. military or intelligence agencies in places such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Such tactics are gross human rights violations, many officials here say. But their own approach has produced few convictions.

In Italy, nine Moroccans who had been held for more than two years on charges of conspiring to poison the water supply of the U.S. Embassy in Rome were acquitted last month after prosecutors admitted they lacked evidence against most of the defendants. Two days later, in a separate trial, three Egyptians were cleared of charges that they intended to bomb Rome's Fiumicino Airport and an American military cemetery.

Those verdicts followed a bungled case last year in which 28 Pakistani men in Naples were exonerated of police claims that they were involved in a convoluted plot with al Qaeda and the Mafia to assassinate a British admiral.

"The reports are completely exaggerated and they create the impression that there is a threat when there isn't one," said Homza Roberto Piccardo, national secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy. "Muslims come to Italy thinking there is legitimate law enforcement, but those expectations are immediately betrayed."

In Spain, a magistrate in charge of investigating terrorism has indicted dozens of people linked to the Sept. 11 hijackings, but has yet to convict any of them on those charges. In the Netherlands, prosecutors have lost two major terrorism cases, including an alleged conspiracy to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris, after judges ruled that evidence obtained by spy agencies was inadmissible in court.

France and Britain have some of the toughest anti-terrorism laws in Europe, enabling them to detain suspects for lengthy periods without trial. But they, too, have had difficulty achieving convictions.

In Britain, 544 people were arrested under anti-terrorist legislation between Sept. 11, 2001, and this January, according to figures provided to Parliament. Total convicted so far: six.

Barry Hugill, a spokesman for Liberty, a British civil liberties group, said authorities could not blame the outcomes on legal technicalities or sympathetic judges. "Given the current climate, the current fear of terrorist attack, getting convictions would not be difficult if there's even a shred of evidence," he said.

In some cases, police or security agencies are quick to make arrests based on rumor or misinterpreted intelligence, as in the case of 10 people arrested last month on suspicion of planning to blow up the stadium of the Manchester United soccer team.