A court in Germany has convicted four men of being members or of supporting al Qaeda. <br /><br />The men, in their 20s and 30s, were accused of planning a potentially lethal attack on German soil.<br /><br />During a two-year trial, prosecuters said the men were acting under direct orders from al Qaeda.<br /><br />They received jail sentences between four and nine years.<br /><br />Court spokesman Andrea Vitek said: “According to the court’s findings, preparations for an explosives attack were relatively advanced. A detonator had been built and it was probably only because of police surveillance already in progress that an attack was prevented.”<br /><br />The group, dubbed the “Dusseldorf cell” by German media was arrested three years ago in the cities of Duesseldorf and Bochum.<br /><br />German media have reported that a tipoff about the cell came from the US secret services.<br /><br />Prosecuters said the men planned to detonate a cluster bomb in a crowd of people, followed by a second blast once emergency services arrived to treat the victims.
