Alliance Base - Christian Ganczarski and Ahmed Medhi

Christian Ganczarski and Ahmed Medhi

Christian Ganczarski, a German convert to Islam, took an Air France flight from Riyadh on June 3, 2003, back to Germany, with a change of planes in Paris. But he was secretly followed on board by an undercover officer. In Paris' airport, a senior CIA officer was waiting for him, while French authorities separated him from his family and arrested him, on charges of association with terrorists. This operation was conceived at the Alliance Base.

On May 20, 2003, Alliance Base learned that Ahmed Mehdi, who lived near Ganczarksi in Germany, was about to travel for a 14-day vacation to La Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean. Although the German BND thought that he was planning an attack, they had not enough evidence to arrest him. The CIA arranged someone to suggest that Mehdi stop in Paris on his way to La Réunion. The French services clandestinely helped him to have a visa, while the Germans monitored calls and contacts. On June 1, 2003, he was arrested by French authorities at Charles de Gaulle International Airport and sent to Fresnes Prison. Two days later, Ganczarksi was also there.

Following interrogations of both men, investigators suspected that they had links with the Hamburg cell, which plotted the September 11 attacks. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy implicitly referred to Alliance Base on June 11, 2003, declaring to the National Assembly that "This arrest took place thanks to the perfect collaboration between the service of the great democracies."