By DPA
Dusseldorf (Germany) : A German judge trying a Lebanese student for an attempted train bombing is to question the alleged co-plotter in a Lebanese prison, according to a German news magazine Sunday.
Focus said Lebanese prosecutor-general Said Mirza had acceded to a German request for access to Jihad Hamad, who has already been sent to jail for 12 years for the failed 2006 attempt to blow up two German trains.
The other Islamist, Youssef al-Hajj Dib, 23, is in German custody and currently on trial in the western city of Dusseldorf.
Court staff could not be contacted by DPA Sunday to confirm the Focus report.
Focus said the judges and lawyers would see Hamad in Beirut but the questions would be posed by a Lebanese magistrate. It quoted Hamad’s counsel, Johannes Pausch, as saying the trip was expected next month.
Presiding judge Ottmar Breidling said last month that testimony from Hamad was all that was lacking before a verdict.
Police experts say the two bombs, left between seats on two trains, failed to detonate because the two men failed to mix the explosives according to a recipe they found on the internet. Both were filmed by closed-circuit cameras as they boarded the trains.
The attack was Germany’s closest shave yet with Islamist terrorism.