BERLIN, Jan 24 (Reuters) - A 38-year-old German-Moroccan man was sentenced to more than five years in prison on Thursday for setting up a terrorist network and aiding an Iraqi group with links to al Qaeda.

The man, referred to as Redouane E.H., had helped to recruit and finance potential suicide bombers and had supported al Qaeda in Iraq, prosecutors said. Captured in July 2006 at a Hamburg train station, the man now faces five years and nine months in jail.

Security officials had been spying on his Internet use in a cafe in the north German city of Kiel and were able to provide detailed digital evidence of his links to the groups.

Judge Mathias Hohmann described the man's network as "the breeding ground of al Qaeda in Sudan".

Redouane E.H., who said his actions were "adventurous foolishness", was also found guilty by the court in Schleswig-Holstein, north Germany, of paying an al Qaeda member in Algeria to train him to make explosives. (Reporting by Philip Jarke, Writing by Sylvia Westall)

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