Belgian court hands 3 Moroccans 5 years in jail for intl. terror links

A Belgian court handed down Friday 5-year jail terms against 5 individuals, including 3 Moroccans, for links with international terrorism.

The court also condemned 4 co-defendants to suspended jail terms of 11 to 30 months, and acquitted one.

Mohammed Saber, an Iraqi Kurd refugee in Belgium and Moroccan Driss Elatellah were handed down a 5-year term for belonging to a group that received information from Al-Qaida and dispatched them by telephone to other web members worldwide, mainly in Spain, Italy, Syria, Iran and Pakistan.

Moroccans Youssef El Moummen and Karim Tarik were also sentenced to the same term for possession of firearms and grenades, "for an unclear, but terrorist objective," the judge said, describing them as "dim-witted adolescents."

Belgian-Tunisian Takek Maaroufi, who led the group according to the police accusation, had already been sentenced last June to 7 years in jail at an earlier trial that followed 9-11, 2001.

This trial, which ended Friday, had started in mid-September.