Abdelkader Belliraj (Arabic: عبد القادر بليرج, IPA: [ʕɑbdælqɑːdir biliːrædʒ]; born 1957, Nador) is a Moroccan-Belgian citizen who was found guilty in 2009 of arms smuggling and planning terrorist attacks in Morocco.
The judicial correspondent of La Dernière Heure mentions that both Abderahim Bekhti and Omar Belliraj laundered the money by buying four Porsches, one Mercedes, a Honda motorcycle and a jet ski, with €500 banknotes only.
Nouri and his companions travelled a lot in the Middle East, notably in Libya and Iraq, both for political reasons and to get money from the oil-rich Arab "progressive" regimes.
[8][9] At some point in the 1990s, Belliraj became an informant for the main Belgian intelligence agency, the Sûreté de l'État, infiltrating criminal organizations, and even having dinner with Osama bin Laden less than two weeks before the September 11 attacks.
He also stated in an open letter, written in August 2008 and published by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, that they had been extorted under torture,[12][13][14] a practice common in the Moroccan police system.
[11] Belliraj's trial was docketed for October 16, 2008, at the Moroccan Sla Criminal Appeal Court in charge of terrorism affairs, under the judge Abdelkader Chentouf.
[20] On October 22, 2008, Belgian Justice Minister Jo Vandeurzen was asked in the House of Representatives by MP Georges Dallemagne (of the CDH center-left party, a member of the governing coalition) if Belliraj could be tried in Belgium for the crimes he allegedly committed there between 1986 and 1989.
[21] On June 27, 2009, Belliraj was convicted of "plotting terror attacks in Morocco, holdups in Europe, large-scale money laundering projects and arms trafficking.
[22] The trial has been described as Morocco's highest profile terrorism case,[2] and has divided political parties, with some supporting Belliraj's defence.
[23] The 2008 (first ever) public report of the Belgian Sûreté de l'État, published on line in January 2010, includes a section over the "Belliraj Affair", fairly critical towards the Moroccan version: "Only seven of the fourteen international arrest warrants issued by the Moroccan authorities could undergo examination, because the other persons enjoyed the Belgian citizenship at the time of the facts, thus making their extradition impossible.