France to try Tunisian synagogue bomb suspects

PARIS, Nov 14 (Reuters) A French court will try in his absence one of the suspected Sept. 11 attack planners for his part in a 2002 bomb attack in Tunisia that killed 21 people, including two French nationals, a justice source said.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani believed to be one of the planners of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, is suspected of organising the suicide truck bomb attack on a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, on April 11, 2002.

He is being held by US authorities in Guantanamo Bay and is expected to face a US trial A Paris judge issued a warrant for his arrest and he will be tried in his absence for ''conspiracy to murder in association with a terrorist undertaking'', the source, who declined to be named, said yesterday. The trial is expected within between six months and a year.

Two other people, a German convert to Islam, Christian Ganczarski, who was arrested in France in 2003 and the brother of the suicide bomber, Walid Nouar, will also be tried for their involvement in preparing the attack.

The bomber drove a tanker truck filled with cooking gas to the synagogue and blew it up as tourists were entering the building, which was virtually destroyed. A synagogue had stood on the site for 1,900 years.

Fourteen Germans and five Tunisians were also killed in the blast and 30 people were wounded.

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