CNN

In his opening statement in the trial of Mokhtar Haouari, accused of aiding the plot, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Bianco said Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted in an earlier trial, planned to detonate a suitcase bomb outside a security checkpoint in one of the Los Angeles airport's terminals in the days before the new year.

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Prosecutors allege that Haouari, a Montreal shopkeeper who had lived in Canada since 1994, aided an Islamic militant cell known as the Armed Islamic Group, also known by its French initials as GIA. The group is opposed to the Algerian government and has claimed responsibility for subway bombings and airplane hijackings in France.

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Ressam had trained in the Afghanistan military camps financed by Osama bin Laden, according to Canadian and French investigators, but during his trial, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour forbade prosecutors to talk about bin Laden, and excluded testimony that could have linked Ressam and other alleged conspirators to a global terrorist network.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), June 28, 2001