Berlin disco terror trial nears end

BERLIN

Fifteen years after one of the worst terrorist attacks targeting US citizens in Europe, the deadly blast still reverberates.

This month, following a four-year-long trial, a court here is expected to reach a verdict in the case against five defendants charged with the bombing of a West Berlin dance hall frequented by American servicemen.

In April 1986, only days after the attack killed three persons and injured more than 200 at the La Belle disco, President Ronald Reagan meted out punishment, ordering retaliatory airstrikes against Libya, which the US blamed for the attack.

Building a legal case and tracking down the suspects has taken a great deal longer. But time was not an enemy: The historic fall of the Berlin Wall opened the path to new, vital clues.

Detlev Mehlis, the state prosecutor who has been on the La Belle case from the start, says the experience has shown him that, when tracking terrorists, "one good agent is more important than a spy satellite." He also notes: "Fighting terror is not a thing of five or 10 years. Maybe we should think in dimensions of 15 to 20 years."

The La Belle case may have little more to teach investigators today, says Munich terrorism expert Patrick Moreau, for terror has entered a new era.

In the 1980s, the foe was state-sponsored terrorism, but after the collapse of the USSR, countries such as Libya or Syria could no longer afford to sponsor terrorism, Dr. Moreau says, because they lost the intelligence and economic support necessary to carry it out. Libya's surrender in 1999 of the suspects in the Lockerbie case "shows that international pressure had results," he says.

Today, however, the dimensions of terrorism, as seen in the global reach of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, are harder to track. "The geopolitical constellations of the 1980s are not at all like today's," Moreau says.

As for who carried out the La Belle bombing, prosecutor Mehlis has reached a conclusion similar to Mr. Reagan's: "It goes without saying that the attack was arranged by Libyan authorities."

The prosecution is asking for life sentences for four of the five defendants, who have followed the trial in bulletproof boxes in a gloomy, high-security Berlin courtroom. The defense strategy for the four prime suspects - three Arab men and a German woman - appears to be to cast doubt on evidence provided by the codefendants.

In the years immediately after the attack, it seemed the case would never be solved.

But after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a high-ranking officer of the Stasi, the East German secret police, started talking about the shadowy role of the Libyan embassy in East Berlin. The new trail led to Ali Chanaa, a German of Palestinian origin, who had been reporting to the East Germans on what appeared to be a Libyan terrorist plot.

"The Stasi knew, thanks to its top agent, Mr. Chanaa, that the attack was organized by the Libyan embassy in East Berlin," says prosecutor Mehlis.

Page: 1 | 2