Christian Ganczarski

M. Christian Ganczarski (* 1966 in Gliwice , Poland) is a convert to Islam convicted of aiding and abetting the attack on the Al-Ghriba synagogue in Djerba in 2002 and membership in a terrorist organization .

Training and conversion

He came to Germany with his parents at the age of nine, where he became a German citizen . He grew up in Mülheim an der Ruhr . He finished secondary school after 7th grade. In 1986 he converted to Islam and was henceforth active in a Mülheim mosque. Muslim friends also call him Abu Ibrahim . He trained as a fusion welder and enameller. There are contradicting statements in the press about the graduation: from prematurely canceled to finished as the best in his class . In 1990 he married a German who had also converted to Islam.

In 1991, Dr. Nadeem Elyas , at the time a member of the board of the Islamic Center Aachen , gave him a “scholarship” to study Islam at the “University of Islamic Sciences” in Medina, Saudi Arabia . Ganczarski's later statements to the police seem to have started a large-scale recruiting campaign by Islamic scholars in European countries in the early 1990s. Non-Arab converts should be trained at the university and be taught Islam in order to later teach Islam to non-Arab Muslims in their home countries. In 1992 he accepted the offer that was attractive to him and went to Medina with his family. He did not obtain a school leaving qualification or training. According to the Attorney General Kay Nehm , he later gained access to the inner leadership of al-Qaeda .

Return to Germany

After two years he had to leave Saudi Arabia with his wife and children because his sponsors no longer wanted to finance the stay. The family returned to Mülheim. He found it difficult to find his way around in Germany. In the 1990s he moved to Chechnya , Afghanistan and Pakistan several times . He is said to have earned his living smuggling precious stones. In the late 1990s he was often seen in Duisburg with Mohambedou Ould Slahi, who is related to bin Laden through his wife. In July 2001 he is said to have met Nizar Nawar in a guest house in the Afghan mountains. In 2002 Ganczarski was unemployed and lived sometimes in Mülheim, sometimes in Essen, sometimes in Duisburg. Because of his radical views, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had been monitoring him for some time and had the phone tapped.

Djerba assassination

On April 11, 2002 at around 7:30 am, Ganczarski received a call from Nizar Nawar from the Tunisian island of Djerba . According to the press, the conversation was translated as: N .: “Don't forget to consider me in your prayers.” G .: “God willing, do you need anything?” N .: “No, thank you, I only need yours Blessings. ”G .:“ God willing. ”Nawar is said to have had this conversation either from a cell phone or a satellite phone.

A short time later, around 8 a.m., a van exploded in front of the Al-Ghriba Synagogue on Djerba, killing 14 German vacationers. It is still unclear whether the van was filled with kerosene, gasoline or 5,000 liters of liquid gas. Usually water was carried in the truck. The driver who was burned with the vehicle was identified as Nizar Nawar. 21 people were killed and another 30 injured, some very seriously.

Ganczarski was then questioned by the police. Mounir El Motassadeq's phone number was reportedly found when his home was searched . Despite his testimony, investigators had to let Ganczarski go the next day. According to Section 129a of the Criminal Code , membership in a terrorist organization is prohibited, but this only referred to domestic, not foreign, terrorist organizations. On April 26, 2002, the Bundestag passed the corresponding supplementary paragraph § 129b . But the new law does not apply retrospectively , and the German authorities had no legal control. A bug that he later found in his car broke.

Ganczarski quit his apartment, got visas for Saudi Arabia and took the children out of school. In November 2002 Ganczarski was able to travel to Saudi Arabia with his family unhindered. In 2003 , the Federal Court of Justice repeatedly rejected an arrest warrant against Ganczarski for failing to report a criminal offense under Section 138 . The investigating authorities in Tunisia and France were appalled and the US public shocked.

Arrests

In April 2003 Ganczarski was seen in contact with Islamists in Saudi Arabia and arrested in Riyadh and released in May. Shortly afterwards he was placed under house arrest because his Saudi pilgrimage visa had expired and was due to be expelled. After returning to Germany, however, a German arrest warrant could not have been issued against him, nor could he have been extradited abroad as a German ( extradition ban ). According to media reports, the CIA and the French secret service worked out a way to investigate Ganczarski and bring him to justice. This is said to have been an operation by the international counter-terrorism center Alliance Base , but it has not been officially confirmed. Ganczarski was expelled and put on a flight from Saudi Arabia to Germany with a stopover in Paris. While making a stopover at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport , Ganczarski was arrested by French authorities on June 3, 2003. While his wife and four children were being released, Ganczarski was taken to Fresnes Detention Center .

Two days before him, the Moroccan Karim Mehdi from Duisburg, who has lived in Germany since the late 1990s, was arrested at the Paris airport. He was on the flight from Germany via Paris to the French island of Réunion . His phone number had been found in Ganczarski's phone book. Karim Mehdi is said to have confessed that Ganczarski was one of the organizers and financiers of a planned attack on the French island of Reunion. Mehdi was sentenced to nine years in prison in October 2006 for membership in a terrorist organization. Belgacem Nawar, uncle of suicide bomber Nizar Nawar, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Tunis in June 2006 for his involvement in the attack; he was arrested there shortly after the crime in 2002.

According to a Spiegel report , al-Qaeda commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , arrested in Pakistan in 2003 , testified that Ganczarski had close contacts with terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and acted as a courier between bin Laden and Sheikh Mohammad. In addition, a video made by Al-Qaeda became known, which 20 months before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 shows bin Laden with comrades in arms, including Ganczarski and members of the Hamburg terror cell .

Criminal trial in France

On November 17, 2006, France's chief terrorist investigator, investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, brought charges against Ganczarski before the criminal court in Paris ( Cour d'assises speciale ). The criminal trial began at the beginning of January 2009, and the Paris public prosecutor demanded 30 years for Ganczarski. For the prosecutors, the almost two-minute telephone conversation had an "operational character" and was assessed as a signal to attack. The attorney general's office demanded 15 years imprisonment for Nizar Nawar's brother, Walid Nawar.

On February 5, 2009, Ganczarski was sentenced to 18 years in prison for aiding and abetting murder and membership in a terrorist group. Walid Nawar was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The United States Department of Justice National Security Division (NSD) of the DOJ and the New York prosecutor announced a revised indictment against Ganczarski at the beginning of 2018: He is said to have traveled at least five times from Germany to Pakistan and Afghanistan between 1999 and 2001. He is said to have been sitting in the front row with Saif al-Adel's son in his lap during a speech at al-Qaida headquarters in January 2000 . In around March 2000, he is said to have attended a meeting between Mohamed and a representative of Jemaah Islamiyah (CC-1) in Karachi . He is also accused of repairing an anti-aircraft missile with others in Afghanistan in November 2001 in order to use it to shoot down a US military aircraft. Two weeks before he was due to be released from Pénitentiaire prison in Vendin-le-Vieil , Ganczarski was informed of his possible extradition to the United States, whereupon he attacked three guards with scissors and a sharp object on January 11, 2018. After a subsequent uprising of concerned prison guards, prison director Bauer asked to be removed from his post.

Web links

• Osama's German general ; at stern.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Djerba attack: Central Council of Muslims falls into twilight Ahmet Senyurt, Die Welt May 6, 2003
2. ↑ ^{a b c} What was Christian G. planning? Jan Rübel, Die Welt June 16, 2003
3. ↑ L'enquête sur l'attentat de la synagogue à Djerba rebondit ( Memento of January 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Rachid Hallou, fides, November 7, 2002
4. ↑ Première journée procédurale pour le procès de l'attentat de Djerba , Le Monde report from the first day of the trial with the most important facts, January 5, 2009 (French)
5. ^ ^{A b} Terrorism: Indictment against German convert Christian Ganczarski in Paris SWR November 19, 2007
6. ^ French Terror Conviction: Lesson for US? By Bruce Crumley, Time, Friday Feb 06, 2009
7. ↑ The Alliance Lives! By Bruce Crumley, Time, Sunday June 15, 2003
8. ^ Help From France Key In Covert Operations Dana Priest, The Washington Post, July 3, 2005
9. ↑ Arrested terror suspects had connections to the Hamburg Al-Qaeda cell ( memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Hamburg Inner City Authority, June 12, 2003 
10. ↑ Terror - The German at Osama Bin Laden's Spiegel table , August 2, 2005
11. ↑ Moroccan Karim Mehdi convicted in Paris terror trial ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. AFP of October 26, 2006 
12. ↑ Deux ombres sur le tribunal Jeune Afrique, 11 January 2009, p. 10-12.
13. ↑ Assassination de Djerba: report du procès en appel du complice du kamikaze ( Memento of March 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) AFP, le 14 November 2006 at 2:32 pm
14. ↑ Duisburg involved in attack on Djerba? AFP dated June 6, 2003
15. ↑ Martyr converts made in Germany - Notes on the internationalization of militant jihadists from Germany  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Bernd Georg Thamm "The Criminal Police" December 2008  
16. ↑ ^{a b} Bin Laden's German General - What role did the convert Christian G. play in the assassination attempt in Djerba? Ulrich Neumann and Fritz Schmaldienst, Report Mainz , ARD November 19, 2007, 9.45 p.m.
17. ↑ Video showing Atta, bin Laden is unearthed - Two 9/11 hijackers pictured at Afghan terror training camp in 2000 NBC News updated 10/1/2006 (2:52)
18. ↑ Assassination de Djerba: 5 personnes renvoyées devant la justice française ( Memento of March 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) AFP, le 13 November 2006 at 19h56
19. ↑ ^{a b} 18 years imprisonment for German Djerba defendants by Sascha Lehnartz, Die Welt February 5, 2009
20. ↑ https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alleged-al-qaeda-associate-charged-conspiring-kill-americans-and-other-terrorism-offenses . Accessed: 2018-01-20. (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6wbzg92Md )
21. ↑ https://nypost.com/2018/01/17/alleged-bin-laden-crony-charged-with-conspiring-to-kill-americans/
22. ↑ Florian Flade: Al-Qaida terrorist: Christian Ganczarski, Osama bin Laden's forgotten general. In: welt.de . January 18, 2018, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
23. ↑ http://www.20minutes.fr/societe/2201971-20180115-prisons-directeur-centre-penitentiaire-vendin-vieil-demande-quitter-poste