[JURIST] A court in Azerbaijan on Monday convicted a group of 29 people of plotting terrorist attacks in the country. The court sentenced the group to prison terms ranging from nine years to life. The group was arrested in April and May 2012 and was accused [reuters report] of plotting to kill Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev [official website], and planning several attacks on hotels in the capital city of Baku. The prosector asserted that the attackers, who are believed to linked to al Qaeda [JURIST news archive], come from the Russian province of Dagestan and declared jihad against the Azerbaijan government.

Many cases involving al Qaeda operatives are also making their way through the US judicial system. Earlier this month the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld [JURIST report] the 2011 conviction of Tarek Mehanna, who was found guilty on four terror-related charges and three charges of lying to authorities. In October suspected terrorist Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai was charged [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website]. In March Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the son-in-law of Osama Bin Laden, was captured [JURIST report] and thereafter indicted in federal court for plotting to kill Americans. In January the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the conspiracy conviction [JURIST report] of Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul, Osama bin Laden’s media secretary.