A Syrian member of al-Qaeda, Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa (Arabic : لؤي محمد حج بكر الصقا) was convicted of masterminding and financing the 2003 Istanbul bombings, and in February 2007, was sentenced to 67 life sentences by the Turkish courts. [1]
Since the Syrian Civil War started in March 2011, it has been difficult to gain accurate counts of the Syrian population. In 2011, Syria's population was estimated at about 23 million permanent inhabitants, including people with refugee status from Palestine and Iraq. While most modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history, they are, in fact, largely a blend of the various Semitic-speaking groups indigenous to the region.
Al-Qaeda is a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The 2003 Istanbul bombings were four truck bomb attacks carried out on November 15, 2003 and November 20, 2003, in Istanbul, Turkey, leaving 57 people dead, and 700 wounded. Several men have been convicted for their involvement in the bombing.
He was arrested in August 2005, while allegedly planning a bomb attack against an Israeli cruise ship. [2] He was accused of supplying Turkish militants $170,000 to perform the bombing. [3]
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia, located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition.
A cruise ship is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages when the voyage itself, the ship's amenities, and sometimes the different destinations along the way, form part of the passengers' experience. Transportation is not the only purpose of cruising, particularly on cruises that return passengers to their originating port. On "cruises to nowhere" or "nowhere voyages", cruise ships make 2-to-3 night round trips without any ports of call.
Unlike some of the six Turkish men also given life sentences for the attacks, al-Saqa maintained his innocence throughout the trial. [1]
al-Saqa's lawyer was banned from the court for "aiding and abetting al-Qaeda", and al-Saqa was twice thrown out of the court himself, once at his first court appearance in March 2006 for refusing to stand and identify himself to the judge [4] and again two months later for wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. [5]
During his trial, al-Saqa was questioned by prosecutor Huseyin Canan about the beheading of British engineer Kenneth Bigley in Iraq. [6]
Kenneth John "Ken" Bigley was a British civil engineer who was kidnapped in the al-Mansour district of Baghdad, Iraq, on 16 September 2004, along with his colleagues Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, both United States citizens. The three men were working for Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services, a Kuwaiti company working on reconstruction projects in Iraq. The men knew their home was being watched and realised they were in great danger when their Iraqi house guard informed them he was quitting due to being threatened by militias for protecting American and British workers. Bigley and the two Americans decided it was worth the risk and continued to live in the house. All were subsequently kidnapped and beheaded.
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest and Syria to the west. The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians and Kawliya. Around 95% of the country's 37 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish.
