In 2003, Trabelsi was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Belgium for preparing a terrorist attack on a NATO military base, located in the Belgian Klein Brogel.
In 2008, the US requested for his extradition, presenting evidence that Trabelsi was participating in the preparation of yet another act of terrorism directed against the US Embassy in Paris.
After serving in Belgium, Trabelsi was transferred to the United States, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment without a chance for parole. The impossibility to apply for amnesty became a cause of protest against the Kingdom.
In 2014, the European Court ordered the Belgian State to pay Trabelsi 90 thousand euros in compensation for extraditing him to the United States, because the American sentence exceeds the maximum possible punishment that the offender would have received in Belgium.
After excluding taxes and mandatory fees, the final payment was made at 78 thousand 791 euros.
Trabelsi was a member of the terrorist group al-Qaeda. Before he joined the extremists, he was a professional footballer and played for Bundesliga club ‘Fortuna’ from Dusseldorf.
