Tunis, Tunisia - Court Convicts Accomplice In Deadly 2002 Suicide Attack On Synagogue

Tunis, Tunisia - A 44-year-old man was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for aiding an al-Qaida-linked suicide bombing attack on a historic synagogue that killed 21 people.
The Tunis court handed down this country's first conviction in the case to Belgacem Nawar, the uncle of Nizar Nawar, who rammed a gas-laden truck into the synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba in April 2002, which killed 14 Germans, five Tunisians and two French citizens.
Nawar, a welder who allegedly helped his nephew put a gas tank on the truck, had pleaded innocent to charges of complicity in murder and making explosive devices.
He could have faced the death penalty. His lawyers abruptly left the courtroom before the verdict to protest what they called an unfair and hasty trial.

Nawar acknowledged having helped his nephew buy the tanker truck, but said he had no idea what his relative planned to do with it or the modifications he would make to the vehicle. "I am in no way involved in this attack. I am innocent," he said before the verdict.

The only other convictions in the Djerba case came last month in Spain, where the National Court sentenced a Spaniard and a Pakistani to five years in prison for helping finance the attack.