"Walid Yunis Ahmed was sentenced to five years and one month in jail" by a court in the city of Dohuk in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, he said.

Speaking in the Kurdistan capital of Arbil, the source said the time Ahmed had spent in prison would not be subtracted from his sentence, except for the six months between his being formally charged and the trial.

Amnesty International said on Wednesday that Ahmed had been held in prison on "fabricated terrorism charges," and called for his immediate release.

It said that although Ahmed was held continuously since 2000, "no charges were brought against him until about six months ago when he was accused of ordering terrorist attacks in the north from his prison cell."

"We are concerned that his trial now is an attempt both to justify his long detention and to extend it," said Amnesty's Malcolm Smart.

Ahmed was arrested in Arbil on February 6, 2000. He was detained on his way home from a meeting of the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, a legal opposition party, after being given a lift in a car that allegedly contained explosives, Amnesty said.

Ahmed has always denied any knowledge of the explosives, and that the driver of the car had been detained but released without charge, Amnesty said.