Christian Ganczarski (born 1966, in

Gliwice Gliwice (; german: Gleiwitz) is a city in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland. The city is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Kłodnica river (a tributary of the Oder). It lies approximately 25 km west from Katowice, the regional cap ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

) is a German citizen of

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

ancestry who converted to a radical Islamic group.

Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...

, then

French Interior Minister Minister of the Interior (french: Ministre de l'Intérieur; ) is a prominent position in the Government of France. The position is equivalent to the interior minister in other countries, like the Home Secretary in the United Kingdom, the Minis ...

, alleged Ganczarski was a top

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

leader who had been in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

and

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...

. Early on the morning of April 11, 2002 Niser bin Muhammad Nasar Nawar and a colleague drove a truck loaded with

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

canisters behind a German tourist bus near the El Ghriba synagogue on

Djerba Djerba (; ar, جربة, Jirba, ; it, Meninge, Girba), also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is a Tunisian island and the largest island of North Africa at , in the Gulf of Gabès, off the coast of Tunisia. It had a population of 139,544 a ...

island, Tunisia. Nawar then used a

cell phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

belonging to his brother to phone

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-re ...

and Ganczarski. After his colleague fled the scene on foot, Nawar detonated the explosives, killing 14 German tourists, three Tunisians and two French nationals. The

Alliance Base Alliance Base was the cover name for a secret Western Counterterrorist Intelligence Center (CTIC) that existed between 2002 and 2009 in Paris. The existence of CTICs were first revealed by Dana Priest in a November 17, 2005 article in ''The Washing ...

captured Ganczarski at

Charles de Gaulle Airport Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (french: Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, ), also known as Roissy Airport or simply Paris CDG, is the principal airport serving the French capital, Paris ( and its metropolitan area), and the largest intern ...

in June 2003. In February 2009, a French court sentenced Ganczarski to 18 years in prison for the Djerba bombing. Ganczarski is said to have given Nawar the green light to carry out the attack during the phone call before the bombing. In January 2018, after hearing he may face extradition to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in connection with investigations of

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, he injured three French prison guards with a blade in

Vendin-le-Vieil Vendin-le-Vieil (; pcd, Vindin-l'Vieil) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. Geography An ex-coalmining area, once boasting 2 pits, now a farming and light industrial town, Vendin-le-Vieil lies ...

prison. Prosecutors announced on 17 January 2018 that he was charged with conspiring to kill Americans, supporting terrorists as well as other crimes in

Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

.Man Said to Have Ties to Al Qaeda Is Charged With Conspiring to Kill Americans

References

Further reading