By
The Associated Press
ALGIERS, Algeria - A fugitive alleged to have played a leading role in a millennium bombing plot in the United States has been arrested in Algeria, security forces said.
Abdelmajid Dahoumane was arrested on his return from Afghanistan, where he had undergone training in arms and explosives, security forces said in a brief statement issued Tuesday.
The statement did not say when Dahoumane was arrested or provide the circumstances of his arrest. There were unconfirmed reports late last year that Dahoumane had been arrested.
U.S. authorities claim that Dahoumane is the chief accomplice of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who went on trial March 13 in Los Angeles for an alleged plot to bomb West Coast sites during millennium celebrations. They had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Dahoumane, accused of helping Ressam prepare bomb-making materials in Vancouver before heading across the border.
However, the Algerian statement indicated that Dahoumane would go before the justice system in his homeland in connection with alleged terrorist activities overseas.
Since 1992, Algeria has been fighting an Islamic insurgency that has used support groups, notably in Europe, to provide weapons and logistic help.
Ressam, 33, was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, in Port Angeles, Wash., when customs agents found explosives and other bomb-making materials in his rental car after he arrived on a ferry from Victoria, British Columbia.
U.S. officials have linked Ressam and Dahoumane to exiled Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Prosecutors have not mentioned Bin Laden at Ressam's trial.
Ressam's defense claims he was simply a refugee from Algeria who was used by others as an unwitting courier. The defense claims Dahoumane planted the explosives in Ressam's car.
A new indictment issued in Seattle in mid-February contained new charges against Dahoumane and for the first time expanded an international terrorism charge to include "others known and unknown" by the grand jury.
