DOHA/MADRID: Al Jazeera channel and international media groups yesterday denounced the sentencing of the channel’s correspondent in Spain yesterday to seven years in jail on terrorism charges.
Tayseer Allouni was found guilty by Spain’s High Court of collaborating with a terrorist group but acquitted of being a member of Al Qaeda. He was among 18 people sentenced at the trial, the biggest of suspected militants in Europe. A three-judge panel heard from more than 100 witnesses during a two-and-a-half month trial.
"This is a black day for the Spanish judiciary which has deviated from all the norms of international justice," Al Jazeera news editor Ahmed Al Sheikh told the station. "It is a verdict that is based on circumstantial evidence at best. This verdict is a big shock for us. We are convinced of Tayseer’s innocence," he added from Madrid, where he attended the sentencing.
Allouni’s claim to fame was an interview with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden five weeks after the attacks on the United States on Sept 11, 2001. Allouni, Syrian-born but a naturalised Spaniard, had faced a maximum nine years.
"My husband has been sent down for telling the truth... for doing his job. And he would do the same again," his wife Fatima Zahra told reporters after the sentencing.
Al Jazeera said would support Allouni and his family's decision to appeal the verdict and was consulting the defense team. "The channel views the incident as a dangerous precedent for the profession of journalism and journalists across the world who go to great lengths on a daily basis to bring coverage on critical issues," the statement said. "Al Jazeera reiterates its support for Allouni and his professional integrity and courage as a journalist."
Al Jazeera said it would appeal against the "unfair" conviction following a "verdict (which) is very disappointing," director general Waddah Khanfar said in Doha.
A leading media watchdog group, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, said the jailing of Allouni, 50, set a dangerous precedent for journalists worldwide. Jean-Francois Julliard, the news editor, said: "It sets a dangerous precedent, particularly for anyone who seeks to interview Bin Laden in the future."
Allouni, who had insisted on his innocence throughout the trial, was accused of acting as a financial courier to the group while in Afghanistan, Allouni said he was only doing his job as a journalist.
In a verdict that stretched to 445 pages, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alias Abu Dahdah, was sentenced to 27 years jail for conspiring to commit murder in the September 11 attacks. Dahdah was jailed for 13 years for complicity in the US attacks and 12 for belonging to a terrorist organisation.
The prosecution had accused Dahdah and a Moroccan, Driss Chebli, of arranging a July 2001 meeting in Tarragona, northeastern Spain. Chebli was given six years in jail after being found guilty of collaborating with Al Qaeda. But Syrian Abrash Ghalyoun was freed along with five others found not guilty on lesser charges alleging Al Qaeda collaboration.
All the defendants had pleaded not guilty and representatives of several said they would appeal. An appeal must be announced within ten days.
