WASHINGTON — A Tunisian has been extradited to Washington to face federal criminal charges of working with the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to set off a suicide bomb at a U.S. military installation in Europe in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, federal law enforcement officials announced Thursday.
Nizar Trabelsi, 43, a former professional football player in Germany, was arrested in Belgium two days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and had been held there the last 12 years on a terrorism-related conviction. He was charged separately in Washington in a 2006 secret indictment, which was unsealed Thursday.
Trabelsi, 43, is charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals outside the United States, conspiracy and attempt to use weapons of mass destruction, and additional charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
