ET 'Bin Laden's bomber' arrested
By Tim Brown in Madrid and Julian Coman in Paris

SPANISH police claimed yesterday to have foiled a plot to bomb the European Parliament with the arrest of the alleged European operations chief of the wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Mohammed Bensakhria, 34, was arrested in a raid on a telephone and fax centre in Alicante, on the south-east coast of Spain, on Friday. Another suspected terrorist, who has not been named, was also seized.

French police had issued an international warrant for Bensakhria's arrest following intelligence reports that a series of terrorist attacks was to target France. He will be extradited to Paris next month.

After the arrests, Spain's interior minister, Mariano Rajoy, said that the Algerian-born Bensakhria had intended to bomb the European Parliament in Strasbourg as well as Strasbourg Cathedral. Mr Rajoy described Bensakhria as the most wanted Islamic terrorist sought by Western intelligence services in recent months. A Spanish interior ministry official said: "The presumed terrorist was arrested with the help of foreign police services. He is believed to be the head of the Meliani organisation, linked to Osama bin Laden." Bensakhria had passed himself off as an immigrant worker in Alicante. He had escaped from Germany, where the Meliani organisation was based, when police arrested several members of the group. He is believed to be bin Laden's main operations man in Europe. Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi exile based in Afghanistan, has been accused of masterminding the 1998 bombings of two United States embassies in Africa, in which 224 people died.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2001