Lebanon sentences two over German train bomb plot

By Hoda Moneim and Sebastian Braeuer

BEIRUT/DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - A Beirut court sentenced a Lebanese man to life in prison and another to 12 years on Tuesday for their roles in a failed attempt to detonate bombs on German trains in 2006.

Jihad Hamad and Youssef al-Haj Deeb were both convicted of attempted mass murder, while three others were acquitted.

Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Germany, but its judicial system allows it to try Lebanese suspected of committing a crime abroad so both men were tried there, even though Haj Deeb was absent, having been arrested in Germany.

Haj Deeb, who received the life sentence, went on trial in the city of Duesseldorf on Tuesday under the German proceedings against him.

German federal prosecutors say Hamad, 22, and Haj Deeb, 23, boarded two trains in Cologne, headed for Koblenz and Dortmund, in July 2006 with suitcases containing tanks of propane gas and crude detonators.

The bombs failed to go off due to a technical fault, but German prosecutors say they would have caused a significant number of deaths had they exploded.

The plot shocked Germany, which, unlike European countries such as Britain and Spain, has not experienced a major militant attack in recent years.

At the start of the trial in Duesseldorf, prosecutor Horst Salzmann accused Haj Deeb of planning the attacks together with Hamad in April 2006 in a bid to "kill an indeterminate number of people".