By FRANK JORDANS
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 28, 2007; 4:13 PM
BELLINZONA, Switzerland -- A court acquitted seven men Wednesday of providing logistical support to a Saudi terror cell in the first Swiss trial of alleged al-Qaida associates.
The accused were among 10 people arrested in Switzerland in early 2004 in connection with attacks the previous year on foreigners' residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 35 people.
Swiss authorities had said the men _ Yemenis, a Somali and an Iraqi _ did not appear to be directly linked to the attack but alleged that they provided logistical support for future attacks.
Prosecutors argued that two of the men _ who were not identified because of Swiss privacy laws _ had direct links with the al-Qaida-affiliated group that carried out the Riyadh attacks. They said another was allegedly linked with those responsible for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port at Aden, Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed.
The charges against the seven included forgery, bribery and fraud, but the Swiss Federal Criminal Court only returned a guilty verdict for six of the suspects for immigration offenses.
None of the men will be jailed because of time spent in pretrial detention.
The Swiss government was ordered to pay compensation for those held longer than the suspended term received Wednesday.
Court documents said Swiss authorities based their investigation in part on telephone numbers stored in terrorists' cell phones found in Saudi Arabia after the attacks on the compounds. The Swiss detentions were believed to be the first arrests outside Saudi Arabia related to the Riyadh bombings.
Swiss authorities began conducting extensive investigations into possible al-Qaida links after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Several individuals, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed _ the Sept. 11 mastermind arrested in Pakistan in 2003 _ are believed to have been seized after Switzerland's intelligence service tracked their use of cell phones with Swiss numbers.