Terrorism: Mustapha Labsi arrested in Austria

VIENNA - Mustapha Labsi, who had been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in Algeria for membership in a radical Islamist network, was arrested Monday when filing an application for asylum in Austria, said Wednesday the Department of Internal Affairs.

•    "He is likely to be deported to Slovakia. There, he had already made such a demand," said the spokesman of the ministry, Rudolf Gollia, confirming a report in the daily Kronen Zeitung.
  
     Arrested on arrival at the Austrian refugee centre Traiskirchen (east), Mustapha Labsi, 39, escaped Saturday from the detention camp of Rohovce Slovakia.
  
     He was detained in this country since May 2007, following an extradition request by the Algerian authorities.
  
     Validated in January 2008 by the Slovak Supreme Court, that extradition proceedings had been annulled by that institution seven months later following a decision by the European Court of Human Rights.
  
     According to his defenders, among them Amnesty International, Mustapha Labsi risked torture and inhuman treatment if returned to the justice of his country.
  
     He is accused of having been a member of the Algerian Islamist activist networks in the 90s and ties with Al Qaeda.
  
     In April 2006, he had also been convicted in France for five years in prison for "criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise". This sentence was widely covered by five years to purge pending extradition to Britain.
  
     Mustapha Labsi had been convicted of belonging to a network headed in Canada by Fateh Kamel, who was in charge of providing false passports particularly to the Islamist fighting in Bosnia in the first half of 1990.
  
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.