Free Republic

EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands - A member of the Hamburg terrorist cell that planned the Sept. 11 terror attacks visited this southern Dutch town a number of times before the attacks, said German and Dutch authorities. The Dutch secret service also confirmed yesterday that German authorities were investigating the trail of money that flowed through here from Saudi Arabia to finance possible terrorism operations. A spokesman in the German federal prosecutor's office declined to comment, and it is not clear whether a link has been established between the suspected Hamburg cell member, Mounir el-Motassadeq, who is on trial in Germany, and...

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A Moroccan accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers received training in encryption techniques at an al Qaeda camp in Iran in 1997, an Iranian defector said on Friday. But his testimony to a German court was promptly undercut by comments from Germany's intelligence services, who questioned his credibility and said his evidence was worth very little. Hamid Reza Zakeri, the cover name of a man who says he worked in Iranian intelligence and defected in 2001, was testifying toward the end of Germany's second major trial of suspected members of al Qaeda's Hamburg cell....

HAMBURG, Germany - A Moroccan convicted as an accessory to murder in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was sentenced Monday to the maximum 15 years in prison, minutes after telling the son of a woman killed that day "my future is ruined." A federal appeals court convicted Mounir el Motassadeq, a friend of three of the suicide pilots, in November of knowingly helping the hijackers and sent the case to a state court in Hamburg for sentencing. Just before Monday's verdict, the 32-year-old defendant spoke with an American whose mother died on board one of the planes that crashed into...

Ressam at times defiant in 2 days of questioning By Mike Carter Seattle Times staff reporter After more than a year of cooperating with federal prosecutors, Ahmed Ressam has become a sometimes difficult and defiant government witness. Ressam was at times surly and evasive during two days of closed-door questioning this week in Seattle by German lawyers who need his help prosecuting Mounir el-Motassadeq, a Moroccan accused of helping the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. Ressam, convicted of conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism, might be endangering his deal with federal prosecutors to serve as few as 27 years...

HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 10 — A German court today began a retrial of Mounir el-Motassadeq, the only person convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with the disclosure that the United States will for the first time share evidence about the plot. Mr. Motassadeq's conviction was thrown out in March by an appeals court, which said that critical evidence had been withheld by American authorities. After having been sentenced to 15 years in prison, Mr. Motassadeq was freed in April. The decision by the United States to offer limited cooperation to the Germans introduces a combustible element to...

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - The balding young man with the black beard raised his hands to cover his face as three visitors entered the room. Abdelghani Mzoudi is no stranger to the world's front pages and television screens after a six-month trial that saw him acquitted this year of aiding and abetting the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. But he does not like to be recognized, still less to speak to the press. In a drab canteen at Hamburg's Al Quds mosque, housed in an anonymous grey-tiled building with a fitness club on the ground floor, the 31-year-old...

BERLIN - Two suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks will be deported to their native Morocco, authorities said Tuesday, including one who is awaiting a new trial after being sentenced to 15 years for helping the al-Qaida suicide pilots. Both Abdelghani Mzoudi and Mounir el Motassadeq were served with the notice Monday, said ministry spokesman Marco Haase, the first step in what is expected to be a lengthy process that will take place only after all the appeals in their cases go through. Mzoudi, 31, was acquitted in February on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership...

The retrial of the only man to have been convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 terror attacks has been scheduled to begin on Aug. 10, defense lawyers told AP news agency on Friday. In 2003, a Hamburg court had sentenced Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq to 15 years in prison for his alleged role in helping to plan the attacks. But Germany's Federal Court of Justice threw out the conviction earlier this month, saying that the evidence against Motassadeq had not been sufficient for a conviction. Motassadeq has been released on bail pending his retrial. A verdict could come by...

<p>HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - The only man convicted over the September 11 attacks was released from custody in Germany on Wednesday, raising the prospect that he will be acquitted in a forthcoming retrial.</p> <p>The same court that sentenced Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq, 30, to 15 years jail in 2003 for conspiring to murder around 3,000 people in the September 2001 plane attacks in the United States, ruled he should be freed.He emerged beaming from Hamburg's main courthouse, but made no comment before four friends steered him into a waiting car.</p>

After having released Mounir El Motassadeq, the German Court in Hamburg has dropped the terrorism charges against him (3066 counts of accesory). One Charge remains - membership in a terrorist organisation. Until June he remains free, but must remain in Hamburg (at least initially) and must report to the police twice a week. If convicted of the remaining charge, he could face from 1 to 10 years. [my opinion - he will walk on this charge as well.] The entire case has been essentially thrown out based on statements made by others whose connection to the attacks on 9/11 is...

<p>HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - The only person convicted in the Sept. 11 attacks was freed by a court Wednesday, pending the outcome of his retrial on charges of aiding the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the suicide pilots.</p>

BERLIN (Reuters) - The only man jailed over the September 11 attacks was released from custody in Germany on Wednesday pending his retrial, a representative from his defense lawyer's office said. Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq, sentenced to 15 years in jail in February 2003 for conspiring to murder around 3,000 people in the 2001 plane attacks in the United States, won the right to a retrial at Germany's Supreme Court a month ago. His lawyers argued that new evidence, which secured the acquittal of Motassadeq's friend Abdelghani Mzoudi on similar charges, also made Motassadeq's conviction unreliable. A German court accepted...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - A German judge said Friday the case against the only Sept. 11 suspect ever convicted may collapse if it goes to a retrial, adding that he will decide next week whether to free Mounir el Motassadeq. At a hearing to rule on the Moroccan's request to be released from jail, Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt pointed to a March appeals court ruling that the suspect failed to get a fair trial the first time. Consequently, Schudt said that "in the further course of the proceedings it may have to be considered that ... the question of closing the...

The Germans demonstrate the folly of the law-enforcement approach. At a nationally televised debate on January 29, Massachusetts senator John F. Kerry delivered the jaw-dropping assessment that the threat of terrorism had been "exaggerated" by the Bush administration. Terrorism, he asserted, was "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world — the very thing this [Bush] administration is worst at." One might have thought it more than a tad daring for anyone to tell post-9/11 America that the jihadists who have killed thousands of us since 1993 are not so big a deal after all....

KARLSRUHE, Germany - The only person in the world convicted in the Sept. 11 attacks won a retrial Thursday after an appeals court faulted Washington for refusing to allow testimony from a key al-Qaida captive. The Federal Criminal Court overturned the conviction of Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan, leaving German prosecutors with little to show for their efforts to pursue suspects who may have belonged to the Hamburg cell that included three of the suicide hijackers. A month ago, el Motassadeq's friend Abdelghani Mzoudi was acquitted of identical charges of giving logistical aid to the cell. Relatives of Sept. 11...

<p>KARLSRUHE, Germany - Lawyers for a Moroccan man convicted of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers demanded a retrial, arguing Thursday in a federal appeals court that their client had been denied a fair trial.</p> <p>Mounir el Motassadeq, 29, the only person convicted in the attacks worldwide, was sentenced last February to the maximum 15 years in prison for more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization. A Hamburg state court ruled he had given logistical help to the Hamburg cell that included suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.</p>

A German court has ruled that the only man convicted anywhere in the world over the September 11 attacks must remain in custody despite new evidence believed to cast doubt on his involvement. Mounir El Motassadeq was sentenced to a maximum 15 years earlier this year on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder. His lawyers have now asked for his release after evidence, allegedly from a top Al Qaeda member held in the United States, that neither Motassadeq nor another accused, Abdelghani Mzoudi, were part of the al-Qaeda cell involved in the 2001 attacks. Mr. Mzoudi has already...

HAMBURG, Germany - A Moroccan on trial for allegedly supporting a cell of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers was easy to get along with until he fell under the influence of a fellow countryman, who later was convicted on terrorism charges, their former landlord testified Thursday. Reinhard Martens, who rented defendant Abdelghani Mzoudi a room in his house in late 1996, remembered him as a "very good" tenant until another Moroccan, Mounir el Motassadeq, moved in at the start of 1997. "Mzoudi was quieter than before, he seemed like he could not make his own decisions," Martens testified. "Mounir was...

HAMBURG, Germany - A court trying a Sept. 11 terror suspect said Thursday it would seek testimony from a captured al-Qaida leader who allegedly masterminded the attacks on the United States. Presiding Judge Klaus Ruehle said the Hamburg state court had prepared a request for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to appear as a witness in the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, 30, who is accused of supporting the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three Sept. 11 pilots. He did not elaborate. Given Mohammed's alleged role, he should be able to describe where the attacks were planned, defense attorney Guel Pinar said. Mohammed,...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- A witness at the trial of a Sept. 11 terror suspect was pressed Thursday by a judge about her memory that one of the suicide hijackers in 1999 predicted an attack on the United States that would kill thousands. The testimony by librarian Angela Duile could be important in the case against Abdelghani Mzoudi, 30, who is accused of supporting the Hamburg al-Qaida cell. He faces the same charges as his friend and fellow Moroccan, Mounir el Motassadeq, who was convicted in February and sentenced to the maximum 15 years on 3,066 counts of accessory...