Three Jordanians and an Algerian linked to al-Qaida's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were each sentenced to between five and eight years in jail yesterday for planning attacks on Jewish targets in Germany.

Mohamed Abu Dhess, Ashraf al-Dagma and Ismail Shalabi were convicted in a Düsseldorf court of plotting to attack Berlin's famous Jewish museum and a Jewish-owned bar in the city of Düsseldorf. They were also found guilty of being members of al-Tawhid - a radical Palestinian network linked to al-Qaida and headed by Zarqawi, whom the US accuses of carrying out numerous terrorist attacks in Iraq. All three had rejected the charges made against them.

As the verdict was announced, one of the accused, Dagma, managed briefly to escape. He had to be dragged back into the courtroom by four security guards. The men were all arrested in April 2002, after German police carried out a phone-tapping operation. One of the men detained, Shadi Abdulla, agreed to give evidence against his former associates.

Abdulla, who briefly served in Afghanistan as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, revealed how the German cell of al-Tawhid had been in regular contact with Zarqawi. Members of the group phoned him up and discussed with him "honey" and "medicine" - codewords for explosives, the court heard. The group addressed Zarqawi as "the Sheikh".

"I swear to you, Sheikh, I swear that if you ordered me to die, I would do it, Dhess allegedly told Zarqawi in one of the intercepted conversations in October 2001. He later denied plotting to attack Jewish targets. "I hate the Israeli system. But I don't hate the Jews as Jews," he told the court.

The fourth man, Djamel Mustafa, an Algerian, was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in plotting the attacks and for supporting a terrorist group.

The case provides further evidence of the apparent ease with which militant Islamist cells can slip into Germany and discreetly set up European operations. Mohammad Atta, the suicide hijacker who led the September 11 attacks, lived and studied in Hamburg in the 1990s, together with other members of al-Qaida's infamous Hamburg cell.

Yesterday, the judge hearing the case, Ottmar Briedly, criticised Germany's immigration authorities for allowing the men into the country. Abdulla and Abu Dhess used false names and life histories to gain entry. Once there, they claimed benefits and lived off social security.

"Both al-Tawhid cases need not have happened if immigration law had been conscientiously applied," the judge said. He added: "In this case, Abu Musad al-Zarqawi should also be sitting on the defendants' bench."
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