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Al-Qaida Leader Convicted For 9/11 Plot

A suspected Al-Qaida cell leader was convicted Monday of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, concluding Europe`s biggest trial of alleged members of the terrorist cell. Imad Yarkas, one of 24 defendants on trial, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for conspiracy and being a leader of a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors accused Yarkas, a 42-year-old Spaniard of Syrian origin, of the more serious charge of being an accomplice to murder, and requested a jail term of nearly 75,000 years - 25 years for each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the suicide airliner attacks in 2001. Yarkas was charged with arranging a meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain in July 2001, where key Sept. 11 plotters - including alleged suicide pilot Mohamed Atta and plot coordinator Ramzi Binsalshibh - met to decide last-minute details, such as the date of the attack.

Two other suspects were acquitted of helping plot the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, although one of them was found guilty of collaborating with a terrorist organization. All 24 were expressionless as the verdicts were read in the National Court.