Danish terror suspect acquitted

[Steve]

A Danish court on Monday acquitted a teenager for a second time of charges that he took part in a botched terrorism plot to blow up an unidentified target in Europe.

 

Elias Ibn Hsain, a 19-year-old Dane of Moroccan origin, was acquitted of similar charges last year. He was retried after prosecutors said they found new evidence, including digital recordings and bomb manuals on his computer and on a CD-ROM.

 

The Eastern High Court in Copenhagen ruled that the new evidence was not enough to link Ibn Hsain to two men convicted in Bosnia of planning the terror attack aimed at forcing foreign troops to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The convicted men â?? Swedish national Mirsad Bektasevic and Abdulkadir Cesur, a Turk who had been living in Denmark â?? were arrested in 2005 when police raided an apartment in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

 

Police said they found a "suicide belt" rigged with a powerful homemade explosive device, pistols, ammunition and a videotape outlining how to build a bomb. Authorities said they were preparing to carry out the attack on a target that remains unclear.

 

During his retrial, Ibn Hsain said he did not know what the Bosnian cell had been doing. The trial included videotaped testimony by Bektasevic, who said Ibn Hsain was not aware of the activities in Sarajevo.

 

Ibn Hsain declined to comment on the verdict, but his lawyer Thorkild Hoeyer said he was "extremely thrilled."

 

Two Bosnians also have been convicted of participating in the plot and three other suspected accomplices have been tried in Denmark. Only one â?? Abdul Basit Abu Lifa â?? was convicted. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.